


Shades Of Time

by ChaosDancer12, Firehedgehog



Series: A Split In Time [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ErrorisGoth, FGoD, Fates Bitch, Goth - Freeform, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Kidnapping, M/M, afterdeath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 62,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25924342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosDancer12/pseuds/ChaosDancer12, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firehedgehog/pseuds/Firehedgehog
Summary: Twisted and warped, a child ripped from loving arms.Then time caught up.Error... no Goth wasn't happy at all.Well, at least he looked like himself againBased on an idea by ChaosDancer12Original story 'Child of Death, Destroyer of Worlds'Just be Aware Chaos is a bit slower to repost her side on Ao3 as shes using mobileOriginally On Wattpad
Relationships: Geno/Death, Goth/Palette Roller (Undertale)
Series: A Split In Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881430
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	1. Prologue: Discord

For as long as Error remembered, he'd felt disconnected from reality.

He knew he was an error, a glitch, a broken being.

But, for some reason, it was almost as if even time felt... wrong.

It was probably Fate's fault, from when the deity grabbed him, and turned him into Error to serve her whims.

He hated his job as destroyer, he liked fighting as much as any Sans but he hated to kill.

Death was part of his day job, one could say.

Not that Reaper was happy about him sending so many to collect.

Well, Reaper... he _could_ just send them to the void with the human he didn't kill for everlasting torture as they were scattered across the void.

Yeah... nope, he wasn't evil like that.

Then it started.

Strange emotions and dreams, memories not his own.

It caused him to crash quite a few times.

Unknown to him, they started for a reason.

Could these be... his memories?

He'd stay quiet about it then, as Fate would probably erase it from him if she knew.

It was about then that he heard that Reaper and his mate Geno had a kid.

Well... that explained why Reaper was arriving later the last few AU's.

Then...

One fateful day...

Goth vanished, grabbed by Fate.

Time warped and twisted.

And Error crashed.

**REBOOT STARTED.**

**CORE DATA RETRIEVAL BEGINNING.**

**RETRIEVED.**

**CORE DATA STABILIZED.**

**CORE DATA OVERWRITE ERROR DATA.**

**MULTIFORM WRITTEN.**

**REBOOT FINALIZED.**

Error woke with a gasp, a migraine building in his skull.

"What the stars?!" Error... no, _Goth_ exclaimed.


	2. Chapter One: The More Things Change...

The first thing Error- er, _Goth_ did was change his clothing, as they were suddenly much too small.

What did one expect when one went from a ten year old body to a sixteen year old body? Oh, he was still hilariously short, but with how small he'd been as a child, he'd expected that.

In the end, he'd discovered in his panic (as he was starting to panic about going around naked) he could still summon his strings. From his fingertips, which thankfully formed as magic first, then the strings.

Yeah... he had always hated the fact he'd have to pull them from his eyes before.

He'd quickly knitted his strings into a sleeveless turtleneck, pants, and a pair of soft shoes... he'd have to get real footwear later, as they weren't very protective.

Of course, they were all shades of blue, as his strings were always blue. The top was a blue so dark it looked black, the pants the same shade as blue jeans, and the shoes also looked black as well.

It was depressing to realize he didn't have his scarf, the one his mother had given to him as a baby.

He decided not to make a new scarf, he wanted his own.

Hmmm... as Error he'd only used the strings in certain ways, but now that he remembered his past before the Error could he make his string different colors that could do different things.

Something to think over later.

"Huh..." he murmured, staring down at his body. He hadn't noticed before, but markings swirled across the bones, appearing now and then with the shimmer of his magic.

"No... no, no, no, NOOO!" Goth cried, angry and frustrated.

He recognized those markings all too well. He'd seen them enough, they were what he'd seen in his 'Error' code that marked him as Fate's pawn.

He screamed and yelled, and even destroyed a puppet in his rage.

He wasn't free.

And... he discovered he could flip between his true body, and his Error form.

Twenty minutes later, The Error started a chain of destruction, destroying twenty AU's on the list Fate gave him, then vanishing before the Star Sanses caught up to him.

OoOoO

"That wasn't normal," Dream said, shaken.

Ink walked away, angry that he hadn't been able to stop Error from destroying his creations.

Dream hadn't been able to follow Blue and Ink, as they tried to keep up with the destroyer. The rage, despair, and sorrow the God had been feeling had literally knocked him unconscious. Dream did have a limit on how much he could deal with less positive emotions, after all.

Nightmare would have felt those emotions too, he'd have gotten a _huge_ recharge from the amount Error had been broadcasting.

He'd only woken five minutes ago, to find an angry Ink and an upset Blue- as Error had literally moved at speeds they hadn't been able to follow.

"No... definitely not normal," Blue said, his eyelights faint due to distress.

Elsewhere, a door slammed shut as Ink locked himself in his room.

OoOoO

Goth was in an Outertale, which copy he didn't know. Just not his usual one. He sat in some bushes on a cliff's edge to keep out of sight, gazing at the stars.

His rage had cooled a lot, and he'd mostly stopped crying.

He almost wished Fate hadn't given his memories or real body back.

It hurt so much.

As long as he was the destroyer, he could _never_ go home.

" **Stop being a nimrod and get out of the bush, Error,"** a familiar voice growled.

"Nightmare!" he said in surprise. He'd wonder how the other found him... but his feelings would have been like a beacon to the corrupted skeleton, even if his emotions seemed less violent in his true form.

Thankfully Dream wouldn't have been able to recognize him due to his emotions in this form, after all, it wasn't Dream who he'd force fed negative emotions to save their life in the past.

A bond of some type had formed from that, and Error himself had used it in the past to find the other.

Sighing, he pulled himself from the bushes, and mentally grumbled at the realization that he'd have to get used to being so much smaller than his friend.

" **You're freaking adorable,"** Nightmare cackled.

Goth gave a glare, and seconds later, Nightmare was in a tussle with his Error form.

Nightmare was always rather chill.


	3. Chapter Two: The More Things stay the Same...

Nightmare was taking way too much enjoyment in Goth's true form.

It was annoying.

But in the end, the age of his true body explained the maturity level of the Destroyer, as a skeleton's emotions were linked to their age and magic, and, well...

Goth was an itty bitty destroyer.

"I'm not that small!" Goth shouted.

Whoops, it seemed that he'd said that part out loud.

" **Sorry, but compared to your Error form, you're small,"** Nightmare said with a smirk.

Goth looked so done, but it wasn't as effective on the teenager's face.

Geez, the destroyer's real body was sixteen, but could still pass for a child's.

If Goth ever had a way to grow to adult, he'd still be a teeny tiny adult.

"For stars sake, I'm not that small," Goth cried angrily.

Nightmare really should remember to not speak some thoughts out loud.

"Can you untie me please?" Goth asked from where Nightmare had placed him.

" **Nope, I still owe you for the egg prank,"** Nightmare said.

Goth grumbled.

OoOoO

The egg prank.

Where Error discovered an AU where it was always Easter.

Nightmare was still finding eggs six months later.

And not all of them were chocolate, either.

He had only found some of them because the eggs had become rotten and started to stink.

They still hadn't found the last rotten egg somehow hidden in Cross's room.

OoOoO

Goth's stomach gave a rumble, and he sighed. He always forgot that he had to eat while he was in his true form.

" **Goth... do you eat in this form?"** Nightmare asked, having heard the rather loud rumble.

"Yeah, not often, but I do. Not as much as others do, and I still don't need to eat or sleep as Error," Goth said, he was so glad he could eat anytime now. As Error, he loved chocolate, but eating sometimes caused him issues. He was still not giving up chocolate, though. Especially the ones he stole from Underfell.

Mmm... chocolate.

His stomach rumbled again.

" **I'll punish you more at another time,"** Nightmare grumbled, releasing Goth.

"Thanks," Goth said brightly, wandering off to see what food the kitchen had in stock.

" **By the way, do I have to speak to you about your intentions towards my nephew?"** Nightmare said with a shit-eating grin.

"Starsdammit, Nightmare," Goth said, his face blushing a deep purple.

His long time friend cackled.

OoOoO

Dream paused, and his left eyelight twitched.

Why did he feel the urge to punish his brother?

Sighing, he pushed those thoughts away.

Today was for spending time with Palette.

He rarely got time to spend with his only child.

Sure, he'd been an accident, but he did love him.

Palette had been depressed since Goth had vanished, as if part of his life, part of his very _soul_ had been torn away.

 _'We'll find him Palette, and make whoever took him pay,'_ the Guardian of Positivity thought.


	4. Chapter Three: Dance

Error easily dodged Ink's paints, his own strings blocking the creator at every turn.

To outsiders, it was almost a dance, a very destructive, deadly dance.

Ink's eyelight's were a fiery red, angry at Error for destroying his creations.

Error mentally sighed.

He was so tired of these battles, especially now that he remembered who he truly was.

Yet, he couldn't let his thoughts drift, for he hadn't been able to patch this AU's data due to its unstable core coding, and as such, it had to go.

Fate gave him no choice.

So the dance of destruction continued.

Error ended the dance, deleting the final code, and left between one step and the next.

OoOoO

From one step to another, Error went from Error to Goth.

The markings on his body glowing brightly, making it look like his bones were shaded purple in the endless white of the anti-void.

Screens appeared around him, codes only he understood.

A small smile crept up his face, seeing that for the moment there was no patches needed, nor any orders of destruction.

Laughing, he left the anti-void.

He, of all people, had free time.

And he had research to do.

OoOoO

They were Fate.

The great weaver.

They were also Destiny.

They wove the lives of those in the great tapestry of their multiverse, from the first spark of life to the end, when that flame was snuffed out, and the thread was cut.

They were neutral to all things.

And sometimes, that meant that they had to make choices that most would call evil.

But they were neither good or evil.

They were merely following the great plan.

A dance of stories across their multiverse.

Ink was their first and greatest child.

They wrote their duty into the other's soul, and introduced him to his multiverse.

Ink followed the script, creating when it was needed, patching what was damaged, and destroying when it was too late to patch.

Then... Ink fell in love.

It was not fated.

Nor his destiny.

His one did not exist yet.

Fate tried to tell him.

But Ink ignored them.

And the being he loved did not belong.

And this being he loved ripped out his soul, and hid it.

Ink was left soulless, a broken being who could no longer hear Fate.

His heart remained, giving him life, but that was not enough.

And so a cascade of creation began.

Fate could do nothing, as Ink was the only avatar they were allowed.

They looked for a way to stop the end.

And they saw a being in another multiverse, one who could rival Ink.

The admin told them the being was called Error.

Yet, they had no Error.

All Inks needed an Error.

So they did the unforgivable.

They plucked a being from the future, overwriting their destiny.

Until Ink's soul was found, Error- or rather, Goth- would never be free from the dance of Creation and Destruction.


	5. Chapter Four: Meetings

The ceiling was out of sight, that was one of the first things noticeable. The next was that the isles of books, there end could not be seen. The floor seemed to be made of the same stuff as the ground of the Anti-Void. If there were walls, Goth had never found any.

This was a multiversal librarby that was on the edge of several multiverses. He'd discovered this place on accident a few years after his transformation into Error.

Here, one could run into several versions of your multiversal counterparts, so it could be confusing if you didn't understand the omniverse.

Goth had a lot of time to study it due to his duty as the destroyer.

He'd even met other versions of himself here, both as Goth and Error, and he wouldn't even talk about Ink.

The true gods he met weirded him out, a being who had asked him to refer to him as Shell, and a version of US!Sans- Blue- who hadn't been giving his own nickname, other then God Blue.

And that group that skipped away from their set of multiverses to set up a new home in an empty multiverse still had him scratching his skull in confusion sometimes.

And he would not speak of the skittle-obsessed Axetale Temmie that had somehow found her way there.

Due to this, it was a rule here that if you came across another visitor not to ask them about their multiverse, or ask if they were from your own.

Which why it was a shock when he ran into Reaper, his father, literally.

His multiverse's Reaper.

He hadn't even known his dad knew about this place.

Well... now he was glad he was dressed as Librarian Goth from the NaJ multiverse.

OoOoO

Reaper hated entering this place.

He'd run into too many copies of himself to be comfortable.

But he was running out of choices.

Goth was still missing.

Oh, he knew his only truly immortal child was alive, he would've felt if Goth died.

But Goth was a very young Death God, and as his parents, both Reaper and Geno should have been able to trace him anywhere, at least until Goth was a hundred.

But they couldn't.

Which should be impossible, as nothing should be able to destroy or block the link between a parent and child skeleton monster.

Thus why when he turned into an isle, it was a shock he ran into someone and didn't kill them by accident... or that it was a Goth counterpart.

He knew right away they couldn't be his Goth, they were what he'd leaned was Librarian Goth from one of the NaJ multiverses, and he looked older then his Gothy even if he was still a lot shorter then most L. Goth's.

"Are you alright, Mr. Reaper?" L. Goth asked, getting up.

"I'm fine, kid," Reaper said with a grin.

"Is there anything I can do to help you? I don't work here, the admins keep it all straight. But I do know where a lot of things are?" L. Goth asked, picking up the books he'd dropped.

"Don't worry, I know my way," Reaper said, waving the help away.

"Well, if you're sure," L. Goth said, scratching his chin.

Reaper blinked, and for a second, he swore he saw glowing markings on the other's bones.

"See you about, kid," Reaper said with a grin, walking deeper into the library, reminded of his own missing child.

OoOoO

Goth let out a sigh as his father left, his soul pounding heavily in his body.

He wanted to go home.

Wanted to go home so badly it hurt.

"So... you're having the same issue I am," a voice said.

Startled, Goth spun around to see... another Goth.

A freaking taller Goth.

"Is... that Palette's scarf?" he asked in bewilderment, and a faint purple blush covered the other's face briefly.

"Yes, it's his," The other said.

"You said we're having the same issue?" Goth asked.

"Yes, we're both Goth, but an incident caused both of us to be taken by Fate to be Error in our chosen multiverse. Do you mind if I call you Shades? It's in your multiverse's code, and calling each other Goth will get awkward pretty quickly. I go by Searcher outside my multiverse," the other said.

"Sure," Goth said, not really caring.

"Thanks, thankfully our type of timeline isn't popular yet. But I was hoping to speak to you about our Inks' missing souls, maybe trade ideas on what we could do. There aren't many other people that would understand this problem," Searcher said.

"There's a private area a few minutes away, we can talk there," Shades suggested, and the other nodded.


	6. Chapter Five: Two Fates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, finally two Goths meet. This was suppose to be one chapter, Snow almost murdered us when we passed it onto her to edit. Enjoy Searcher from 'Child of Death, Destroyer of Worlds' by ChaosDancer12 and my Goth 'Shades' from 'Shades of Time'

To Shades's relief, the private area was empty. It was a small room created by intersecting bookcases, and there were two comfy couches, a plant that seemed to be glowing, a pair of dark desks, and what looked like a door, carved with intricate flowers.

He waved his counterpart in, then closed the door with a click.

The room grew very quiet, and the flowers engraved on the door were now glowing, showing the privacy magic in the room was in effect.

"I hadn't known there were places like this here," Searcher said with interest, taking a seat.

Shades gave a wry grin. "I discovered it one day, when an Ink kept bothering me. First time I ever saw an admin kick someone out," he replied, taking a spot for himself.

"Fun, now tell me the background on your Ink's soul and I'll tell you what I know of mine," Searcher asked.

"Seems fair," Shades said to the other destroyer, and began to tell what he knew. While his Fate wasn't evil like Searcher's, the voices in the Anti-Void had told... stories.

Falling in love wasn't something he could see Ink doing.

At least not now that he was soulless.

Searcher leaned back in his seat and he began his story.

"I only really figured out that something was wrong when I saw some other Sans on a dare, drink some of Ink's paints, now, you would expect them to experience similar reactions to Ink, right? Well, they didn't. One drank the pink paint and he was _worse_ than Lust, another drank the blue paint, causing himself to fall into depression and Dust himself, and the last one drank the yellow paint, got hyper, and trashed the place."

"Rather extreme reactions, my Ink's paints only have reactions on himself," Shades said frowning.

"Yes, but what if the paints were created using Ink's Soul as a baseline? And the extreme reactions are a defense, to make sure that only Ink would drink the paint, because he would be the only one to survive?"

"Not good at all, your Multiverse is... very dark compared to my own," Shades said, it was like his Multiverse was a happy reflection on it.

"That may be because of our Fates, I don't remember her much but I remember the one time that Dad complained about her, she was not happy that he had overruled her on something... I don't know what it was but she harassed him for quite some time."

"Your Fate is not neutral? My dad told me that was the most important thing beings such as Fate had to be as they must have balance, even if they must do great evil to keep the multiverse moving. It's why admins are able to move so freely, to make sure all stories are told, I just wish I had a larger god locally that worked with the Admins as they could help me look for Ink's Soul or help me locate this so called 'False Love' that caused the issue," Shades said unhappily.

"I didn't know that." Searcher said. "And if what you say is true, my Fate must be breaking a lot of laws. It may be enough for my Dad to do something to remind Fate why she should be neutral. I don't actually know why Ink lost his Soul, but I do know that I was a last minute addition to a completed puzzle. My main theory is that this is the second chance for my Multiverse, Ink must have overfilled and overcrowded it the first time, and Fate didn't like any of the plans that he had to stop it from happening again. She must have blocked off the memory, causing him to have Swiss cheese for a memory and removed his Soul so that, if he did remember, she still had a way to control him."

"That's just messed up, just not right. Now I wish you had someone on your side to help, as Fate is a Deity and not actually that high in the totem pole of cosmic power." Shades said, tapping his chin.

"What's weird is that our multiverses both came from the same core code, we shouldn't have this many differences. A broken fate compared to a neutral fate, both Inks' souls were stolen... but the reason for them is different. Can you check something for me, about the 'false lover'... can you see if any codes from your multiverse ever visited mine? I think someone is playing games," Shades whispered.

(Snow, one of the admins, snickers in a hidden part of the bookshelf, where she is curled with her Nintendo Switch, although the wards on her hiding place keep them from hearing. She finds the fact that she is _literally_ playing games hilarious.)

Searcher froze when Shades mentioned that someone was playing games before he checked their codes, side by side. They were identical, up to a certain point, where they spill off from each other, before they continued down different paths.

Searcher stared at the split point. "Holy _bleep_..." He mumbled. "I found where our timelines split, you mentioned a false lover, right?"

"Yes, Ink fell in love, and they ripped out his soul. Ink only survived because, well, he's Ink," Shades said, pulling up his own multiverse's codes. He poked about until he found the codes of that moment, showing the other, as he knew that Searcher would be able to read it, unlike others.

"My Ink listened to Fate, and he ended it..." Searcher whispered, showing Shades the code of that moment. "That is where our timeline splits. Ink ended the game, he won... And I guess that someone didn't like that..."


	7. Chapter Five: Two Fates- Part Two

"Weird, still doesn't explain your Fate though... dammit!" Shades exclaimed in sudden realization, and he started speeding through the codes.

"Look, at that moment- a ripple. A splinter of reality, our two multiverses were ripped apart, and it was definitely not a natural split. Look at the codes in these spots," he growled angrily.

"I think The False Lover _literally_ broke the balance in that critical moment, my multiverse is more positive, and yours, negative. Which is why your Fate is out of control, Fate is suppose to be in balance, and a being of that much power- even if not a higher deity- trapped in negativity..." Shades said, trailing off.

"And it's why the relationship ended differently, my Ink broke up with him, yours stayed with him," Searcher murmured, touching Palette's scarf. "The loss of positivity infected my Ink, and he created more, trying to fill that gap but everything fell apart. And with my Fate in a state of depression, she could no longer see the positives, losing track of her original goal and latching onto anything to keep her sanity, even if it meant making others suffer..."

"The worse part is that we can no longer fix it, as they're two separate multiverses now," Shades said, a migraine growing behind his eyelights. "Our multiverses are two in one, if one falls, the other will follow."

Now wasn't that a frightening thought.

"What I can do is try to find the version of the false lover in this side, and hope the soul is still with them. You might have to track down your version of them too, after all in the original timeline, they were suppose to steal it, so that might be a clue for you," Shades said thoughtfully.

"You know, it's weird, knowing that while you're my multiversal counterpart, you're also me... in ways that nobody else could be," Shades whispered tiredly.

Searcher smiled. "This is actually the best news ever for me, because up to now, I was stalking out all of the original AUs to see if they had any information on what happened. I know that my Fate hid it somewhere, and now I know that it was to protect it. I just have to find out where it is." A migraine grew behind his eyelights.

"And keep an eye out for that False Lover, they might be looking for it too. Ink may not remember them, but I think that Fate will. It's almost a certainty that she left several false leads and traps." He smirked.

"Well, I know one way that would tell us apart, Shorty..."

"Really? Other then you being taller then me?" Shades asked dryly.

"Who is currently wearing Palette's scarf?"

"I'd call you a dick, but since we're two halves of a whole, I'd just be calling myself a dick," Shades said dryly, but he was also jealous, he'd been keeping an eye on Palette but hadn't had any meetings with him since Fate released his past to him.

"Dude, disguise yourself as the version of Goth of whatever AU Palette is in and pretend to bump into him." Searcher smirked. "It is what happened the first time that I bumped into him after I got my memories back, only that it was an accident and I couldn't see over the book that I was reading."

"Sounds like fun, by the way if I ever visit your side of this mess I'm dressing as a Fell Goth just to mess with people," Shades said with a wicked grin that the other shared, as it was a good plan.

Searcher had a wicked grin of his own. "And I can do the same thing, and oh, how I am going to enjoy their faces when they are faced with a Fell Goth that is taller than a Fell Palette."

"Their faces... oh, stars," Shades cackled. "Anyway, I'll get a message to your side if I find anything like their identity or their AU's codes for you to hunt it down, we need to get both sides stable and hopefully that will stabilize your Fate and allow us to both go home."

"Yes." Searcher told Shade the names of the three AUs that he had already gone through. "I already checked these three, there was nothing there, although if they are smart enough, they will head to those AUs after we are gone. My next target is Underfell, once its current timeline has ended. And I'm saving Reapertale for last, becuase the moment that I step into it. Dad and Uncle Grim will try to hunt me down. Mom might have a bar of soap waiting for me the moment that they drag me into our house, and I won't be able to leave for a while."

"Thanks, here's the list I have of AUs that I checked on my side. Mostly just scanned, though. My Ink keeps me rather busy," Shades said, passing his information over, then getting up. It was then that he realized that the longer he was close to Searcher, the worse the migraine was getting.

'We're not suppose to be separate people,' he thought, knowing the reason. They'd have to be careful not to spend too much time super close together.

"I'll see you around, other me. Let's get ourselves home," Shades said, taking the other's hand and shaking it, ignoring the tingling it caused, his body glowing a faint purple as formerly unnoticed markings appeared in his single eyelight.

"I'll give these AUs a quick look once I'm done with Underfell." Searcher said as he stood up, wincing slightly as his migraine grew worse.

'We're not supposed to be separate people,' he thought at the same time as Shades. They couldn't spend too much time together, even after they stabilised their Multiverses.

"Yeah, I'll see you around." He shook the other's hand, seeing the changes in his markings and ignoring the tingling feeling that he was getting. He didn't notice the matching markings that appeared in his eyelight, or the glow that lit up his bones.

"Let's find a way for us to go home."


	8. Chapter Six: Share

This had "bad idea" written all over it.

In fifty foot letters, with sparkles.

On fire!

Goth groaned in frustration. He couldn't believe he was being such a coward.

Searcher was never going to let him live it down!

A single violet eyelight peered out from his hiding place. Just thirty feet away was a familiar figure.

Palette, sweet, gentle Palette.

A few years older, having aged since Fate had stolen Goth, but just as innocent and kind.

" **Are you stalking my nephew?"** A voice asked teasingly from behind him.

Goth squeaked, spinning around.

"Nightmare," he said in surprise.

" **Did you just squeak? That's adorable,"** Nightmare cackled.

Goth fled.

OoOoO

'Meet Palette, take two,' thought Goth sarcastically.

He was dressed as Fell Goth, as while not an outcode like himself, Fell Goths tended to wander.

"This is so cute," a voice said.

Goth spun around again, feeling like this was deja vu of last time, and stared.

Rather than Nightmare, another Goth stood there. It wasn't Searcher, this Goth appeared younger, and wore different clothing than most other Goths he had seen. He also held a lantern, which appeared to have a save star in it.

"Are you Retconned?" he asked curiously, remembering that Searcher had mentioned a Goth with a lantern by that name.

"Yup! Searcher said he mentioned me to you, so I decided to pop over," Retconned chirped.

"How are you in my multiverse, anyway? I understand the library, but how here?" Goth asked, confused.

"I exist everywhere, I can go anywhere I put my mind to," Retconned replied mysteriously.

Goth gave him a flat stare, as that hadn't answered anything.

Suddenly, Retconned placed something in his hand. Looking down, he found himself holding a basket of fresh chocolate chip cookies.

"Cookies?" he asked, bewildered.

"Always a good ice breaker for Palettes," Retconned said, and pushed him backwards.

Goth yelped as he crashed into someone outside the place where he'd been hiding.

"Works every time," Retconned cackled, and then vanished.

"Are you okay?" a gentle voice asked worriedly.

"Ah, yes... thank you for catching me," Goth said, blushing. He didn't know if he should murder or thank Retconned for this.

"Oooh... cookies," Palette said, spotting the basket.

"Want to share?" he asked.

"Please," Palette chirped.

OoOoO

A being frowned.

For the last few years, it had felt as if they were being hunted.

A mad smile split their face, their eyelights glinting in a frightening way as a _wrongness_ emanated from them.

Well then... let the games begin.


	9. Chapter Seven: Fallen

"Um..." Ink said.

"You're not seeing things, Ink," Dream said, bewildered.

Error was humming and skipping as he destroyed.

"Did... he... have sex?" Ink asked the horrifying question.

Error stopped, and went quiet as mismatched eyes landed on them like laser points.

" _ **You're both dead to me,"**_ Error grumbled, and attacked.

Amusingly enough, the happiness was because he got to hang with Palette for a few days.

OoOoO

Goth grumbled death threats under his breath as he slipped into another AU. Since this AU already had a Goth- it was a Naj AU, actually- he'd had to dress differently. He wore a dark grey tank tap, and an oversized black sweatshirt with a large hood that he had down to hide his face. He also wore a rather nice pair of blue jeans, and his usual boots he wore when not Error.

He really should have checked here first, as Naj AU's coding were weird and couldn't really be scanned properly.

Thankfully, they rarely became corrupted or needed patches, and Ink rarely made more, as they were difficult to code properly. He'd only ever had to destroy two copies... wow, that was low.

He sighed as the loud sounds of a switch came to him, he turned and stared at the figure playing on said Switch while sitting on a nearby bench.

"And you, go back to your own multiverse... why do the admins let you go anywhere you want anyway?" Goth said, annoyed.

The figure giggled.

"Have fun," Shell said waving as Goth walked away.

"You were right, this is funny," Shell said to the person who just sat next to him.

"We better head home before he comes back," Retconned said with a smirk. A small hedgehog made of flames giggled from the top of his head, and a small dragon purred with laughter from inside his hood.

A Temmie with a ragged ear cackled under the bench, this was almost as fun as Skittles.

OoOoO

Goth was in a library. Why did he always end up in libraries?

"Shades..."

Goth froze.

"Searcher?" he asked, bewildered, and everything went grey, the world seeming to swim around him in a swirl of images and pain.

Searcher was in trouble, and he had had no idea how to get there.

"It's not real, Searcher! Hang on... I'll get there somehow," Goth cried across multiverses.

Something caught him.

He hadn't been aware he'd been falling.

"Don't worry kid, I got this," a familiar voice said.

"Thanks, Shell," Goth said, promptly passing out.

OoOoO

Nothing.

Of course he was having no luck finding anything.

Looks like he would have to do a full scan, and hope for a trace.

He rubbed his temples quietly, stressed out. He hoped Searcher was okay, as after Shell had caught him, there had been no more feedback from his other half.

He hoped everything was okay in the other's Multiverse.

Sighing, Goth settled against the great truck of a huge tree, careful to keep his clothing between it and his body. He really didn't want to suck the life out if it. And this forest was beautiful.

In ways he was lucky, his true body was still growing into his Death God powers, so he could still touch things without killing them. Mind you, now that his true self was unlocked again, the power was growing.

One day, he wouldn't be able to touch anyone but his family.

Even Palette might not be strong enough by then to keep his power from effecting him.

'My thoughts are going depressing directions,' he thought sadly, and moved to the side a bit to get up.

It was that chance movement which kept a brilliant flare of white hot magic from crashing into him.

The tree wasn't too lucky, and went crashing down in flames.

Goth rolled away from the attack, slipping to his feet so fast that he left grooves in the moss covered ground.

"Where?" he asked, not spotting the attacker.

The ground rumbled, and his single purple eye light grew large as fissures of that same energy covered the ground.

He fled, too freaked to teleport or portal.

The world exploded.

Then he was falling backwards, into darkness.

Fragments of dirt, rock and trees around him.

The shock of hitting freezing cold water snapped him back to action.

Moments later, he climbed out of the water, and used his magic to squeeze the moisture from his clothing.

Then he paused. It should be pitch black this far below... but he could see fine. Quickly, he looked around and blinked. A building that could only be called a temple stood there, glowing with the same magic that had attacked him.

He could tell that there was something wrong with its magic, it felt _off_.

Then he felt it, a familiar magic nearby... but it was faint, barely recognizable.

Quickly, he ran over and up the temple's stairs, and at the top was a what appeared to be half of a soul.

That was when it was grabbed by a wickedly laughing thing.

Of course... what temple didn't have a temple guardian?!


	10. Chapter Eight: The ** Hits The Fan...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll have to hit wattpad version of the story to see the image of the Guardian

"That doesn't belong to _**you**_ ," Goth said, glitching heavily on the last word.

The creature cackled. It appeared to be a humanoid lizard-thing, with a hunched back and legs that showed it was more at home on all fours due to their structure.  
Pitch black scales covered its body, with protruding spikes in key places. The creature's head had a crest of spines protecting its skull from damage.

Its eyes were whiteish yellow in color, and seemed very unfriendly.

Puffs of smoke slipped from its fanged maw, escaping from between the two largest fangs that trailed down towards its chin. At each wrist and ankle were patches of looser skin that was darker in color, most likely poison sacs.

To finish it off, the nasty beast had a long, slim, scale-covered tail that split in two, ending in small, fan-like sections that dripped poison.

The creature hissed, and leapt.

It was also lightning-fast, apparently.

Claws dug into the floor where Goth had been only seconds ago, leaving grooves that smoked and hissed.

Of course it was acid, not poison.

He'd rather deal with poison.

Goth grinned, a mad Error grin, and his tear marks faded into existence on his face, even as his scythe fell into his hands.

"Let's rumble," he growled, leaping forward.

He had part of a soul to retrieve.

OoOoO

Geno froze.

"Geno?" Reaper asked his spouse.

"Goth is doing stupid and needs to be grounded," Geno growled.

Reaper was both relieved and upset. Relieved that Geno could now sense their child, and upset because, apparently, Goth was in danger.

He grit his teeth, he just hoped that they'd find the gentle skeleton safely, and soon.

OoOoO

The Guardian's claws made awful noise as he used his scythe to deflect them, acid dribbled on its edge but thankfully didn't damage the weapon. Unfortunately, it didn't damage the Guardian either.

Maybe he should shift forms, his Error form was stronger.

Except he couldn't, he seemed to be stuck in his smaller, more fragile form.

A single lavender eye light glared at the creature, which had white liquid splashing down to the ground from its mouth... liquid that melted the solid rock of the floor.

"Aw, that shit's not cool," he swore.

OoOoO

"Very grounded," Geno said, his single eye light narrowed.

"With soap," he continued.

Reaper fled, his waifu was on the warpath and he had to find the kiddo asap.

OoOoO

The Guardian screeched as Goth summoned his strings to throw it further away, followed by a volley of blasts from his Gaster blasters.

He could hear his battle music filling the background, his true battle music... not his Error battle music, but a theme all his own.

He ran forward, the edge of his scythe glowing with magic.

The first hit should have killed the creature, as even though he was the destroyer, he was still a death god, and nothing escaped death.

...Unless it wasn't alive in the first place.

He slid to the right, avoiding a whip-like swipe of its tail and the resulting splatters of acid from the fan on the tips.

Then he screamed.

He hadn't even been able to follow the attack that hit.

One moment the Guardian was ten feet away, and the next, marrow and magic were gushing out from a painfully broken rib, and several other much less dire injuries.

'The poison, too,' he thought as the pain greyed out the edges of his vision.

He could feel his HP dropping, so here was something able to almost instantly kill the destroyer who even Ink could barely scratch.

Pathetic.

He was going to bleed to death just like his mother almost had, but there was no save screen, nothing here to save him.

Stars... he was going to take this _freak_ down with him, then.

OoOoO

"I can feel Goth! He's using a lot of magic!" Reaper yelled to his mate, appearing in their home.

What wasn't said was that Goth would also have to be very hurt for Reaper to sense him like this.

"We'd better go," Geno said, grabbing his husband's hands.

And then they were gone.

OoOoO

"What the..." Goth exclaimed as his injuries began to heal rapidly.

"Shades!" A familiar voice called.

'Searcher?' he thought, bewildered, but he couldn't see his other anywhere as he dodged more acid and poison.

Suddenly a tail slash slammed into him, and he felt darkness begin to claim him as he slammed into a wall which began to crumble around him.

"SHADES!" a voice yelled.

Suddenly, he could hear a Gaster Blaster charging.

"DON'T GIVE UP!" Searcher cried.

The creature screamed as the Gaster Blaster hit, and Goth used its moment of distraction to get to his feet and _slice_.

This time it went through the beast like a hot knife through butter. The creature's life ended without a whimper or scream, and Goth watched in bewilderment as the Guardian turned to stone, then cracked into shards.

"It's... over?" He asked the air, cautiously limping over to the remains and fishing the half of a soul from them.

Worried about his counterpart he opened a window and sent a message.

((Thank you, be careful))

The temple began to shake as the magic holding it together began to fail, and he teleported away to heal and clean his bloodied form. He'd spilled enough of his own blood today.

OoOoO

"No... no," Geno cried, as they landed in a place void of their eldest child.

"We'll find him," Reaper whispered.

"We know he's alive, and we're getting closer."

"But he could die... look at all the marrow and blood," Geno croaked out, leaning down to gently touch the still all too wet marrow that shone with Goth's magic.

"He's not allowed to die," Reaper promised, and pulled them from the AU as the temple finally collapsed, the cave it was in no more.


	11. Chapter Nine: Sands of Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, still have to hit wattpad for the art

"Defeated..." The being said, toeing the stone remains of there Guardian.

The area the temple was in was nothing but gravel and rubble, the area where Goth had fallen was no more, hidden under the rubble from the temple collapsing.

"I'll have to increase the security on the other half."

The area that they stood had barely any room to move, and moments later they vanished, before the final space collapsed.

OoOoO

Goth winced as he pulled on the black clothing, the clothing of a fell Goth.

A hiss slipped from his mouth as his wounds were agitated from the moment, while monster food and healing magic had healed most of it, apparently, the rest would have to heal naturally as the acid and poison resisted easy healing.

He still didn't remember getting half of the gashes on his arms and legs.

He swore as his ribs jolted, and wished they were more healed. They were much better due to Searcher's quick actions, as damage to ribs took forever to heal. At least it didn't end up like his mother's non healable injury.

He still didn't understand just how his counterpart had managed to send a Gaster Blaster to help him...

Goth blinked as he suddenly got a message, probably lagged from going through the barrier between their sides.

((You're welcome Shades..))

A sigh of relief left his body, he had been a bit worried when two weeks had passed and he had heard nothing from Searcher.

((Be Careful, they are probably aware of our Search now)) He sent back, hopefully it would arrive in a timely matter.

He rubbed his face, feeling a bit stressed, ignoring the brief flicker of the purple tear lines on his face. Which was new, as he couldn't control them like he could when he summoned more power from his other form.

But enough worry, he had Palette to meet with.

OoOoO

"Fell!" Palette called, as he spotted the familiar black garbed figure of the Fell Goth.

He frowned a bit, when he saw the other skeleton wincing a bit as they moved.

"Hey." Fell said as they got closer, but suddenly, Fell yelped and he fell to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Palette asked in concern.

"I'm fine, I got hurt... unfortunately the rest has to heal naturally. I must have hurt my leg worse then I knew, it felt like I was being stabbed for a moment." Fell said rubbing the limb, but that didn't make Palette any happier.

OoOoO

"Mama." Shiro said, tugging on the white sleeve of their parent.

"What's up love?" Geno said picking up the tiny toddler.

"Had a bad dream last night." Shiro said.

"It's just a dream, I promise you." Geno said.

"I dreamed that Goth never ever comes homes." She said tearfully.

"Shhh love, don't cry... Goth will come home, I promise." Geno said, trying to ignore the memories of Goth's blood, and no sign of his eldest.

OoOoO

"So what are the plans today?" Goth asked Palette, knowing that he really needed to get to a private place fast. The injury on his leg wasn't old, but new.. and it was leaking marrow.

"I heard that a new store opened, with new types of healing items." Palette said brightly.

"Sure." He said with a smile, glad his hood hid his face as he could feel his marks appear again from the pain.

If he was in this much pain, then how much trouble was Searcher in?

Ignoring the pain flaring, he followed his crush to the store.

OoOoO

"I had fun." Palette said with a smile.

"Me too." Fell said.

"I hope that we can meet up again soon, hopefully by then I can have my Gothy meet you." Palette chirped, while the other skeleton stilled for a moment.

"I hope so." Fell said.

"Bye Fell." Palette said, as the other skeleton nodded his head and he walked away. Palette's smile vanished and the feelings of happiness vanished, he didn't... know what to do.

"Gothy..." He whispered.

Fell was his Gothy, the person who he hadn't realized that he was in love with, until they vanished. He didn't know why Goth was pretending to be another, but he had a bad feeling about it.

He didn't tell anyone that Goth was pretending to be a Fell Goth, something told him not to... Goth wouldn't be doing this unless it was important.

Yet...

"Wait!" Palette cried, as he ran around the corner Goth had just gone around, but no one was there.

"Goth." He sniffled, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

OoOoO

Goth blinked as he found himself.... somewhere not where he'd been moments before, and when he looked around, he saw the world around him was muted color wise, but he still recognized it as a temple, like the one he fought in before.

"Sand?" He questioned, realizing the floor was made out of heavy sand, the type that was hard to walk on.

And then, he noticed them, cracks in the muted color, tainted with magic.. Searcher's magic.

"Wait.. is this where Searcher was when he helped me?" He asked shocked, and a blur went beside him.

And a big honking snake.

"Owwww..." Goth.. no Shades said as the snake slammed into a wall, and he winced at the state of his counterpart.

Searcher was covered in sand from the arena that he was fighting, as well as his own Magic and Marrow. He had various bruises, cut marks and scrapes littering his body, but the most dangerous wound that he had was the impalement wound in his left shoulder.

A Marrow and Magic stained strip of cloth that was wrapped around his left leg, was the evidence of the first wound that he received from the Guardian.

"Work work work." Shades said as he pulled out the most powerful healing item that he'd bought, and he cracked it open before he ate it quickly.

The pain from earlier from his leg wound faded and he hoped that it had helped his counterpart.

"Move your Freaking Starry Ass Searcher!" He yelled.

OoOoO

Fate paused, and she stared at her Destroyer.

"I'll give that line a 8 of a 10." She said.

OoOoO

Shades quickly began to figure out what else he could do, other then munching on healing items and hoping this temple Guardian wouldn't have the same anti-heal ability his did. He then noticed the world was less muted by the cracks and he quickly began to pry at them with magic, physically and by codes.

"Come on... let me help him." Shades said, even if he was still in pain, he wanted to help his counterpart.

The cracks widened and so did his smile.

"Crap.." He swore, as he saw Searcher loosing his scythe, before he flung himself forward....

And the world shattered.

Suddenly, he was in a world of normal colors. He swung out his strings and leapt up, using the motions to land on the worm's body and he slammed his own scythe down, right next to the other scythe, before he ripped both of them out of the worm as it screamed. He quickly landed next to Searcher, who smiled as he took his scythe back.

"One scythe delivered." He said and ate another healing item.

"Aww, come on!" He cried, as he was pulled into the mono world again.

Shades could only watch now, and his eye widened as... the scythe evolved.

The worm met its fate as worm food.

((See you about. Library?)) He sent via the codes as the world faded, and he soon found himself in the anti-void.


	12. Chapter Ten: A scant moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens when both Snow and Chaos edit a story together, a hilarious scene gets even more funnier.

Goth stretched happily, his body having finally healed.

Still sore, but without any new scars.

After hitting the Anti-Void, he'd ended up visiting Nighty. The cursed skeleton had given him _such_ a look before sending him to bed.  
He'd slept like the dead, and then he woke up and ate enough food for Horror to be impressed.

Why was he so hungry? He ate all the time, always too much food, but it never seemed to be enough.

But he would think over the food situation another time.

Suddenly, he shivered. Why did he have the urge to run away from Nightmare?

He had a feeling that this was Searcher's fault.

OoOoO

" _ **No, just no,"**_ Error said as he came across the latest AU that Ink had created. He was glad that Inky had slowed down a lot since he'd been kidnapped, but... they'd become a bit bizarre, to put it simply.

Take this one, for instance. DanceChickenDreamTale. How the heck did Ink even manage to come up with such a bizarre thing?

"They're perfect!" Ink protested.

"Bwark," Chicken Dream squawked, staring up at normal Dream.

Normal Dream looked ready to cry.

It was also buggy as heck, as was shown when chicken Nightmare glitched right _through_ the Tree of Feelings.

" _ **Sorry. It's gotta go,"**_ Error said with a sigh.

"Noooo... don't destroy it Error!" Ink cried, leaping forward to stop him.

Dream would not admit to cheering Error on for that fight.

Even if an Axetale Temmie appeared out of nowhere and attempted to maul Ink, screaming at him.

Something about someone named Searcher needing brain bleach if he ever found out about this...

OoOoO

Goth carefully packed up his supplies, he had an absurd of monster food and healing items, and a few pieces of extra clothing. Mounds of paper bound in book form with his research into Ink's soul. A cellphone with cat stickers on it, he'd bought it after he remembered.

Did cellphones work between there two sides? Might be faster then messages sent by codes.

And the last item, the half soul of Ink that was staying in a sealed container in his item pocket for safety.

"Right, that's everything," he said, putting the last items away.

" **Do you have any idea where you're going next?"** Nightmare asked.

"I'm checking out a snowy AU next, ever since I got the part of Ink's soul there's been a weird energy coming from it," Goth said, adjusting his cozy winter jacket.

" **And if you run into another Guardian?"** Nightmare asked.

"I'll be fine, Nighty, I'm just scouting. I won't enter anything like a temple if I can help it," Goth sighed.

" **You have my number, kiddo,"** Nightmare said.

"Thanks dad..." Goth mumbled, blushing, then fled.

OoOoO

Snow, snow, and more snow.

And Goth didn't mean the admin who worked an Omniverse over- although he did hear the strangest sound from somewhere in the snow that covered the ground, and could've sworn that he saw a flash of icy blue light.

He squinted against the wind and the sun shining off the snow, deciding that he'd need to get goggles to protect himself from snow blindness.

That was when he fell over, incredibly dizzy for a frightening moment.

A horrible feeling as something became unbalanced far away.

"Dad...?" he questioned, wait, no... that horrible feeling wasn't his dad...

"Searcher... what's going on with Searcher's dad," he said, climbing to his feet and trying not to throw up.

This was magical feedback from Searcher.

He looked in the distance where ice spikes rose unnaturally, those would have to wait.

Moments later he was gone, hoping Searcher would be there soon at the library.

Wind blew across the area, shifting the loose snow, and seconds later, all traces of Goth's presence were gone.


	13. Chapter Eleven: Innocence

Searcher was still snickering as he entered the library.

Shades who had been there quite a few.. too many hours, was fast asleep on a couch in their little private area, with his backpack against a desk, and his parka sprawled over himself like a blanket.

Searcher stopped snickering when reality hit him. His Dad was missing, disappearing before he could even have the chance to see him again. He wrapped his arms around himself as he walked to their private area, trying not to cry.

Suddenly arms went around him, and he found himself being gently hugged by Shades who while sleep rumpled quickly began to comfort him. "He's not dead Searcher." He whispered, rubbing Searcher's back "I could feel it, missing, not dead.. just trapped. We'll find him."

"We'll find him?" Searcher asked, wrapping his own arms around Shades. "You promise?"

"I promise, I'd destroy the multiverse if I have too," Shades promised, a promise of pain for whoever had trapped Reaper in his eyes. Reaper was his dad.. kinda, just like his Reaper was also Searcher's dad. And he'd drag both sides of there dual multiverse to it's ends if that's what it took.

"Okay..."

"Do you want to take a break Searcher? Your really not in a good spot right now." Shades asked worried, shoving his parka off the couch and pulling Searcher to sit beside him.

"I don't know." Searcher said. "I really don't know anything anymore Shades, everything's changed and sooner or later, I'm going to be dragged into it as Error, kicking and screaming..."

"I know.... hey, want to hear about the stupid AU my Ink created lately?" Shades asked with a grin.

"What did your Ink do now?" He asked.

"Well... he seems to be making weird mixes... with chickens." He said dryly.

"Chickens?"

"Let me tell you the story of DanceChickenDreamTale." Shades giggled.

"Wait... DanceChickenDreamTale?" Searcher asked.

"Yup, I even took pictures it was so stupid." He said continuing to giggle.

"Wait... I remember my Ink trying to create that AU..." Searcher suddenly said, before he started to blush. "Wait, wasn't my Pally born after my Ink tried to create DanceChickenDreamTale? Oh Stars no! Where's the Brain Bleach?! I did not need those images!"

"..." The innocent bean Shades said confused.

Searcher whimpered. "No! Bad images! Go away!"

"Bad images?" Shades said even more confused, at this point things must be explained. Searcher got the talk, Shades did not. So... he was very innocent still, as even as Error he'd never come across it.

After all, even a Lust knew not to offer that to save their AU.

The poor Sod.

"Very bad images." Searcher said, before he realised something. "Shades, did you get the 'Talk'?"

"Talk?" He asked confused, tiling his head and gaining a cute factor of over nine thousand with his smaller size.

Searcher then knew his counterpart was still innocent in certain ways...

"Ask your parents about it when this is over." He eventually said, why, oh why, did he have to get the perverted side when they were spilt into two?

Wait.... Does that mean that he had an excuse to be protective over his counterpart?!

But still, he wasn't going to be the one to give them the Talk.

Meanwhile in the normal two sided multiverses, the Palettes sneezed innocently, still not having gotten the talk either.

"Okay?" Shades replied bewildered.

"You don't want to know Shades... You don't want to know..."

"Okay." Shades said, smiling happily and innocently, you could almost see the sparkles.

OoOoO

Searcher looked up from his notes when there was a knock on the door to the private room that he and Shades was sharing.

The other Goth was snoring his head off, so Searcher got up to see who it was.

He opened the door to see a human standing there. A human with Temmie ears and a lanyard around her neck, showing that she was an Admin.

"Hey, Beanpole!" The human grinned.

"I am not a Beanpole!" Searcher yelled, waking up Shades.

"Well, the Beanpole and his Midget just got an invitation to a party that Shell's holding." She grinned, before she grabbed both of the Goths by their arms.

"Hey! Who are you?!" Shades yelled as they were dragged out of the room.

"I'm Chaos, the Admin for this Omniverse, which includes Searcher's Multiverse, now come on, we're going to be late."

_**Please Read A Party to Remember for the Party scenes once posted :D** _


	14. Chapter Twelve: Frustration....

Goth winced as he lost concentration for a moment, his body dropping several feet.

Both Searcher and himself had separated after returning from the party, as both had things to do.

Well.. he knew he did.

He had gone back to the snowy AU he'd last been at, there was definitely a temple there hidden under a glacier. Giant ice spikes with veins of magic encased in them, crystallized ice and snow... the entrance was barely a hole

Right now he was back at the library, searching for more information on that AU.

Good news, they had a few books on it.

Bad news, it was the height of three Asgores up and he had no ladder to get it.. and he'd yet to unlock the wings granted him from his father's heritage.

But he had managed to learn to float/fly like his dad...

Kinda.

So there he was way up in the air trying to control this magical ability he never used before, and the books large and awkward sized.

Awkward enough he had to pull them out and bring them down one by one.

Fuuunnn.....

Not.

But he'd do it anyway, because Ink's soul was there and it might help Searcher find his Ink's soul.

He couldn't fail on this.

" _Look, are you sure this is a good idea Fate?"_ a voice said, blinking Goth looked around a corner to see Fate... but not his Fate or Searchers fate talking to someone.

"Probably not, but Ink is going to find him soon enough and I already know how... well evil my counterpart is there. No one will get a happy ending there, and my Error said he could find a safe haven for them in an empty AU," Fate said sounding depressed.

" _More and more Fate's are becoming unhinged, the stable Fates are getting rarer. Is it due to the corruption?"_ the other asked.

"No... this has nothing to do with the Colorless situation, but I am getting worried," Fate said, as they and the other walked far enough away so he couldn't hear them.

That, was troubling to hear.

"Ack.." he said loosing concentration again, at least it was the final book.

He was not looking forward to all the coming research.

OoOoO

The Au had started out as a Blizzardtale, but had warped into some type of Endless Icetale where humans and monsters lived below to survive as Nature caused mass extinction on the surface.

The local Sans did not have a nickname, as he never left his AU to concerned on survival. The fallen child was a Frisk, who was of a tribe of Savage humans that had somehow survived above where others not fo there tribe were food.

Goth gave a grimmance, The AU was giving a bad taste in his mouth as a fallen child that thought of those below as food was not a good thing.

It was just nasty.

Across the table was copies of codes and symbols of both multiverses, he was looking to see if this AU had a symbol that meant anything. After all this AU had a temple, he had to be prepared.

How did Searcher not go insane from researching so much, gah.. his other self was so much better then this.

Sighing, he opened another book on creatures of the AU.

OoOoO

"Aren't you at that Party of yours?" a voice asked, Goth blinked.. he swore the library was rather busy lately.

"I'm still there, this is just another avatar," a familiar male voice said.

"Ah, that's fine then since Fire is still bending time for everyone there. I swear that girl is busy busy busy," the first voice said.

 _'Shades, I have a chance to speak to Mom again, should I take it?'_ Searcher sent via the codes.

"I know, her Vacation became a staycation," Shell laughed.

The voices moved away, but Goth was staring at the message in the codes.

' _Yes'_ he sent, then allowed himself to cry.

He wanted to go home.

OoOoO

Fate was not a cruel mistress.

Fate must be neutral at all times.

But they did feel pity for there Destroyer.

They watched the child wipe away there tears and continue researching.

Yet till there Creator was whole, the Destroyer must continue.


	15. Chapter Thirteen: Fragile Hopes

Shades was probably in a spot that he shouldn't be in, sitting on top of one of the super high bookcases in the Library with his legs over the side. He was feeling a bit depressed to tell the truth, he hadn't been able to find anything on the temple and AU information was scarce.

He missed his mom.

He missed his dad.

He missed his siblings.

Sure he had gotten to see Palette even if in disguise, but his soul hurt so much with how much he missed them.

He was jealous of Ser, Searcher who got to speak to one of his parents... even if Ser's dad was missing.

He wanted to go home.

He entered the Library, he had made a quick stop in a Birdtale AU to get his top and his jacket adjusted so that he could use his wings without destroying them every time that they came out when he was using his Dad's scythe but right now, he wasn't here as Error or Searcher, he was here as Goth, a big brother who sensed that a younger sibling was upset.

"Shades?" He asked, his jacket was tied around his waist and he was holding his travel bag by one of it's straps.

A sniffle was heard, from above.

He looked up.

Shades blinked and he looked down, their eyes met.

He had been trying to find Shades but when he found him, he started to panic, because how did he get up there without wings?!

He had discovered that he could no longer float anymore, a side effect of his Dad's scythe, he was using the Magic that he usually used to float to help him control it.

"Shades!" He yelled. "Get down here before you hurt yourself!

Shades yelped, startled and he lost his balance, he fell forwards, falling a few feet... and stopped.

"Ser... why would you yell, you scared me?" Shades asked, a bit teary eyed as he floated down, before he safely landed on the ground.

He ran towards Shades and he scooped him up into a hug. "I was worried, I didn't know if you had any floating or flying abilities." He said. "Don't scare me like that again."

"I'm sorry Searcher, I didn't mention it because it's still pretty new to me and it's a bit wobbly when I use it." Shades replied.

"Okay." He didn't let go of Shades. "Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news."

"Searcher... all our news is either good or bad news." Shades replied dryly, wiping the tears away.

"Yeah... I think that I know what the masonry is for."

"Go on." Shades said, he had quickly realized he wasn't about to escape the hug of doom, even though he had a migraine quickly building up from them being too close as always.

"Well, I did a charcoal rubbing of it so that I could look at the carvings without having to pull it out of my inventory every five minutes, and the symbol in the middle of it, cut into pieces, is an AU symbol."

"Great... there's like a zillion of those." Shades moaned, thinking of the pile of them he'd come across just looking into one AU.

"Sadly, I can't check my temple, it's buried. I don't even know if my ice temple has any... but i did find a book for them. Apparently our linked multiverse shares the same AU Symbols." Shades sighed. "I'm guessing you already tried the temple with the snake guardian for more?"

"Yeah, mine wasn't so buried..." He frowned. "But, Dad must have gotten there after me...."

"What! Your dad?! You found something from what happened to him!?" Shades asked worriedly, as Ser's arms tightened briefly around him.

"I found his scythe and his phone but he wasn't there."

"I'm sorry." Shades whispered.

"I know, but the Temple, it seemed to tell the story of Ink and Fear, my Ink must have gotten Broomie right after Fate took his Soul." Searcher frowned. "And I was there too, as Error and as myself, but the carving of me had wings."

"Ser... I hate to tell you, we both have wings. We just haven't unlocked them yet as we've been sealed as Error, Dad did say we should reach them when we are older then what our true forms are... even if they technically don't age." Shades sighed.

"I couldn't leave Dad's scythe there, but it came with a price."

"Price... are you okay?" Shades asked worriedly, finally having managed to pull Searcher to the coach in their hideaway, while he was still stuck in the hug of doom.

"I can't float anymore, I'm not ready to use Dad's scythe, the Magic that I use for floating, is now being used to help me control it and the excess Magic from the scythe, has a very weird way of manifesting itself."

"Ser..."

He brought out his Dad's scythe and the fluffy silver wings spread from his back, going through the slits in his top, before they wrapped themselves around the two Goths.

Shades's eyes widened as he reached out and he gently touched the silver feathers, they were very soft but he could tell that they weren't mature yet, as the wings had been forced out early and they were still technically baby bird soft. If Ser learned to fly with them, he would probably be using the scythe as support to them. He also had the feeling his were probably a lot like this... if he could summon them that is.

"They're so pretty." Shades said, petting them. Searcher smiled.

"Yes, they are..."

"Don't fish for compliments dork." Shades snorted.

"They remind me of when I was a kid and I couldn't sleep, Dad would sit on the bed, hug me and wrap me up in his wings, and I would fall asleep to Mom singing a song."

"He'll do it again Searcher, we'll make sure of it. We'll beat Fear, put Inky's soul together and we'll both go home to mama and papa." Shades said, leaning forward and resting his head against Searcher's chest. He ignored the pain that his body was broadcasting from staying too close to his other.

"Yeah, Mom wasn't happy when I hung up on him. I am so dead when he gets his hands on me." He rubbed the back of Shades's head. "But for once, I'm not the one who needs to cry."

"I want to go home... I want to talk to mama and papa and Raven and Shiro, Nightmare's like another dad, but he's not really papa. I hate Fear, I want to hate my Fate but I can't. We can't even really ask for help." Shades whispered, and began to sob into his much taller counterpart's chest.

"I know, I know..." Searcher said. "But I do know one thing, just like when you was there for me when I needed to cry, I'm here for you now. We are going to be okay Shades, we have to stay determined. We're the children of Death and someone who refuses to die, it's time to use the stubbornness that Mom gave us."

"Mom... sniffle.. is going to ground us for eternity." Shades said with a half sob, half giggle.

"And wash our mouths out with soap, I could probably distract mine with Dad for a bit but he'll get me eventually."

"We could always hide with Palette, I have a feeling that mine is only pretending not to see through my disguise." Shades giggled.

"Yeah, we could."

"Ser, thank you. I needed that," Shades said, wiping away his tears.

"You're welcome Shades."

"Soo... I did definitely find a temple on that Ice AU, all that paper and books on the table is about it. But, I don't have a clue on what the temple looks like under all that ice or if it has a temple guardian. And I was thinking, our temples seem to be opposites. My first one was in a forest filled with life but underground, and yours in a lifeless dessert above ground. This one is an endless ice AU, could this mean that yours has fire in it.. or lava?" Shades said, wanting to change the subject a bit before they both got depressed.

And he didn't feel like being a Depresso expresso again today.

"It could have fire or lava in it, I'll have to look closer at those AUs." He winced. "That is not going to be fun."

"With our luck, it's going be a live Volcano." Shades moaned.

"Yeah..."

"Soo... Do you want to look at what I found on my temple's AU? You're better at research then me and I'm worried that I missed something. I can look up lava/fire AU's or Volcano ones for you if you do for me." Shades asked hopefully, because he'd noticed all the elemental AU files/books were way high up and Ser probably probably could use those wings in the library... if he could use them...

"Of course I can do that for you." Searcher smiled. "Is there anything that you need before I do that?"

"You might want to let me out of the hug, " Shades giggled.

"Oh, okay." He let Shades go.

"Freeedom!" Shades shouted running off.

He laughed.


	16. Chapter Fourteen: Ice and Snow

"Maybe I should have put these on after I left the library." Shades sighed as he pulled on the thick winter parka and other winter gear, sure they were skeletons but that AU was so cold it could freeze even the Error to death.

And that was saying something, as he was the Error.

He slipped his cellphone into his pocket, knowing that it now had his counterpart's phone number. As of yet, they had no clue if it would cross the boundaries between the two linked multiverses.

"Are you going to be okay while I'm hitting the temple Ser?" Shades asked his counterpart.

"I'll stay here and look up the AUs with fire and lava." Searcher told him. "And practise with these a bit more." He carefully flapped his fluffy wings.

"Are you sure that the library is the best area to practice? I don't want you to get banned from this place because you kept on flying into the bookshelves..." Shades said worriedly, he'd seen some weird reasons to ban someone from this library because he was here more often.

"I don't want my Uncle Grim or Mom turning up and ambushing me if they can sense Dad's scythe being used, and I don't want to be in the Anti-Void, unless I really have to go there."

"If you're sure about this, then I'll try to keep in touch." Shades said.

"Good luck."

"I'll need it." Shades said, before he slipped back through the codes to his multiverse.

OoOoO

Ice and snow crunched under his boots, he was glad for the goggles blocking out the sun this time as he didn't need to add snow blindness to his list of issues.

The ice temple entrance was twenty feet away, taking a deep breath he walked forward then sighed. Slowly he got down and started crawling, his only light was magic frozen in ice and snow. He could feel the ice through his thick gloves, the only reason the jagged ice wasn't ripping what he was wearing was due to the fact he had sewn his only strings into the fabrics.

He was glad he wasn't Claustrophobic, it was bad enough he was Haphephobic in his Error form before he woke. As Error he still didn't like touch, as the Error's on his body made it hurt.

Suddenly a small sound same to him.

"Oh... please no.." he begged.

_Crack!!!_

He gave a cry as the tunnel broke below him, and he was falling into darkness.

OoOoO

Goth slowly woke up.

His head hurt, his eyes flickered open to darkness and carefully he examined his skull and was relieved to find to damage.

Skull damage was hard to heal, and often fatal.

He didn't want to find out if he could survive a skull break like Horror, as Error yet he'd heal.. as Goth no clue.

The fall has been cushioned somehow by some snow, that hadn't frozen through as yet.

Slowly he got up, wincing a bit.

He pulled out a small bit of food and nibbled on it, he had to be in top form for a temple.

The small skeleton focused magic into his eye, his eye light glowed a fierce purple as he gained Night vision; now and then code appeared in it then vanaished. He idly wondered if Ser had learned this trick.

Then he paused and blinked, apparently he'd actually fallen into the actual temple.

No Guardian in sight yet, nor Inky's soul piece.

Sighing he looked around, The room was huge, more like a cavern the size of a football field.. or was it soccer.. whatever. Pillars reached up to support the ceiling and ice above, now and then through thinner ice he could see some type of stone floor.

Quickly and silently he began to explore.

There had to be something here?

Suddenly he notice a section of wall that was slightly different textured, slipping over he grinned.

These looked like the engravings Searcher had found in the dessert temple.

Annoyingly they were too iced over to look at.

Looks like he'd have to used more magic.

He ran his hands over each engraving, focusing his magic and the codes in them. The engravings glowed briefly then both magic and engravings faded from sight, checking his inventory he saw that all of them were there.

He had no clue how many there were, but this should make Ser happy.

Ser was a happy researcher.

With that done he began to explore more, he had to do the engraving grabbing twice more but only for singular ones.

Finally he couldn't find any more, and he headed deeper into the room where he spotted something that looked like an altar.

It was a stone table that had no ice or snow on it, two frozen guttered braziers on either side.

"Yeah... so a trap," Goth said, well time to walk into the trap then.

He stepped forward.  
The Braziers rushed to life with blue flames that radiated cold.

"Mu..."

"Um.." Goth said, as something tiny had just appeared on the altar.

"Mu..."

By the anti-void it was freaking adorable.

It was as small as a teddy bear and looked like one also, with fur as white as snow. Black and yellow eyes peered out of the fluff, black curved horns from the head and rather cute large black bat like wings.

"Its too cute, please tell me its not the temple guardian," he begged.

"Muuuuu," the cutie cried, a bad feeling went down Goth's spine.

Then roared.

_**FEAR!** _

Goth fled, not in control as the roar echoes in his body.

He stopped a moment later and turned.

It wasn't so cute anymore, somewhere between the Fear attack and turning back it had changed.

It was huge, a fully grown Polar bear with sharp claws and fangs, The wings looked more like a dragons now. Wherever its breath landed, thick jagged ice appeared.

Not a good sign, a very bad sign.

If this was a video game, right now the Guardians name or title would have appeared.

"Okay, that's not cool at all," Goth said, for around the guardians neck was a collar and in a container was a half soul.  
'No essence of the soul though' he thought, so part of it was missing still.

OoOoO

Geno paused, eh had been in the midst of making lunch for Raven and Shiro.

"Geno, everything okay?" Reaper asked.

"Something's wrong, I think Goth's in trouble," Geno said.

"Stay here, I'll start looking.. if he uses enough magic I'll know," Reaper said.

"Hurry," Geno said voice tight.

OoOoO

"I've been waiting for you," Goth said summoning his scythe his eyes closed, it twisted from its original small form to a much longer one made of ebony and obsidian. Runes seemed to be everywhere from the blade to the handle he held all growing not purple but black.

"Did you think I wouldn't be ready this time fears Guardian, I wasn't just researching since the last temple. After all, Freedom is what I want," Goth said, his voice colder then the ice around him and a smile on his face that would probably send Death itself fleeing.

Eyes opened, eye lights a blazing red.

So much Determination, that if he hadn't been Reaper's child and born of Geno it would have instantly dusted him. But what was interesting, that around each red eye light was a ring of gold.

Then he was gone, moved so fast he left an after image.

The Guardian roared and barely moved in time, its right horn cut in half.

Goth skid to a brief stop, leaving melting ice and snow behind that steamed away quickly.  
In the background, and in his soul he knew that Ser was in the between.

He couldn't keep this up forever he knew, this semi transformation took a lot of energy but he could keep it up long enough to cause serious damage.  
He smiled, slightly gentler as he felt Ser come through.

Yet he had no time to pause, he only had a few minutes like this. He leapt forward a black aura around himself, the Guardian roared as its left wing became a stump.

"You know, if we weren't two sides of the same coin, I would be running for my life from you Shades." He grinned, laughing manically. "Let's put this Guardian down, shall we?"

"Don't worry, you're in my good books Ser, I'll show you how to do this powerup later." Shades said as he landed away from the guardian who looked ready to charge at him in anger over at the loss of it's wing. He had worried how others would react to this but slowly, his own tear marks appeared, but in gold.

"That's okay with me, are you ready?" Searcher spun his Dad's scythe around, settling down into his combat stance.

"I was born ready." Shades smirked, looking rather evil, with the black aura around him, holding his own scythe in his hands.

"Good." Searcher purred. "Let's do this."

Shades sped forward at the unbelievable speeds the power up gave him, dodging the Guardian's rush across the room, and as they went by each other, he sliced it's back badly.

OoOoO

Geno didn't know how, but he had to leave.

Reaper wouldn't get there in time.

Raven and Shiro were back to school for now at the moment.

Moments later the kitchen was empty.

OoOoO

Searcher took the more range based option, summoning two Gaster Blasters that fired at the Guardian as he used his wings to fly above the Guardian, to dodge the Creature's rush.

The guardian realizing that the invaders were out of range or too fast, changed...

Long black blades grew out of it's body, making its back look like a bladed hedgehog.

"Stars!" Shades cried as his next attack bounced off the blades hidden in the normal fur.

Searcher swore. "This one is going to be difficult, isn't it?" He summoned several bones, leaving them floating in the air, before he got on one of them, resting his wings.

"If it wants to be difficult, then I'll make it difficult!" Shades said angrily, suddenly, golden strings appeared from everywhere. They were glowing and they were everywhere.

The guardian swiped at one, but it had no effect.

"Searcher, my powerup is about to end, these strings are only unbreakable till then!" Shades yelled to his counterpart, using the summoned strings to hold the Polar bear Guardians limbs in one spot.

He didn't like using the strings, they cut down the powerup time a lot.

"I understand." He fired his bones at the Guardian, using the last one as a boost pad, before he fired it at the Guardian, to help increase his speed in the air.

Shades controlled more strings, this time black at the Guardian. These ones hissed as they touched the guardian, as the blades began to Rot.

They had to end this before they got hurt. He dived down from the air, swinging his Dad's scythe at the rotting blades.

Time seemed to freeze, as if it was deciding that if it would work or not.

Then the scythe bit down, ripping deep into the Guardian's body.

A Roar filled the cavern, but it was not roar of fear, it was just one of pain.

Suddenly, cracks appeared, with a bright light shining from the cracks.

The world.. or Guardian exploded, the force filling the Temple.

He was sent flying back into the air, having dropped his Dad's scythe a second before the Guardian exploded, making his wings disappear before the blast hit them.

He crashed into a wall, a repeat of what had happened to him in his first fight with a Guardian, but this time, his hands had been burned from the explosion when he shielded his face from the blast.

He was glad that he had put both of his scarfs in the inventory before he crossed over to Shades's Multiverse.

It seemed that Nightmare had the clothing charmed to help protect him from injuries and it seemed to have worked, the front half of his body wasn't burned but his clothes were smoking. All of the protective enchantments had been used up protecting him from the blast but that just meant that his impact fractures from crashing into the wall was his only injuries.

Meanwhile, Shades crashed into a wall, going back to normal, his strings gone. He had a burn mark on his face.

"Is it over?" Shades asked, slowly getting out of the rubble, looking absolutely exhausted.

"I did not want a repeat from my first fight with a Guardian." He pulled himself from the crater that he left in the wall. "And the self destruct."

"Yeah.." Shades said dryly, and he saw that the Guardian was rubble with Inky's soul piece floating above it. Wincing, he walked over and he put the soul piece in his inventory, before allowing himself to sit in a area that was clear, more then likely from him melting it away earlier.

"I'm about to pass out." He admitted.

"Me too." Searcher slowly climbed down from his crater, heading over to Shades, and sitting down next to him.

"High five for temple speed run," Shades joked, holding up a hand.

"Yeah." He high fived his counterpart.

Shades leaned back on the ground, the temple much warmer now and he wouldn't be surprised if this AU would actually become more easy to survive in.

"A little nap won't hurt, we can figure out how to get you home afterwards." He yawned, and a few seconds later, he was out of it.

"Yep." He yawned too. "I'll just get my Dad's scythe first." He got up and he stumbled over to his Dad's scythe, before he put it in his inventory and he made his way back over to Shades, collapsing in a ball next to his counterpart, dead to the world.

Moment later, an eternally bleeding figure appeared.

They took in the smouldering remains of the Guardian, the ice temple and the two unconscious skeletons.

"Goth!" Geno cried taking in the smaller figure, then he blinked in shock at the second skeleton.

Another Goth, but the smaller one was definitely his baby bones.

He'd figure out what was going on when they woke up, moments later, the temple was empty.

Which was good, as a few seconds later, a part of ceiling collapsed as water rushed in, it was an insane amount of water due to the sudden melting of the ice.

Shades was correct, the AU would be in a much better spot.

After all, the temple was the source of all the ice and snow.


	17. Chapter Fifteen: Aftermath

Searcher was the first Goth to wake up. He groaned, it felt like he had been thrown through a wall again by Ink. He just wanted his headache to go away.

The room was dark, it had to be very late in the night or early in the morning. He pushed the blanket off of him and he sat up, someone had partially undressed him, removing his boots and his coat. He could barely see the outlines of them on a nearby chair.

"Where am I?" He asked himself, before he remembered that when he had fallen asleep, he had not been alone.

"Shades!" He yelled, getting out of the bed. The floor was cold but that didn't matter to him. "Shades! Where are you?!"

His counterpart was missing. He was not here.

Suddenly, hands came out of nowhere, and he panicked as they pushed him back onto the bed.

"It's alright, breathe... if you're looking for Goth, he's on the other side of the bed, if you turn around." A voice said, a familiar voice.

He looked at the other side of the bed, only to see Shades there. He reached out and he touched one of his hands, to reassure himself that this was real.

"He's okay, oh thank the scythe that he's okay." He was calming down.

"Go back to sleep, we can talk once both of you have gotten some rest." The voice said, gently shifting him and tucking him back under the covers.

"Okay." He felt his eyes slowly close as he curled up closer to Shades. "Thanks..." He was half asleep. "Mom..."

He fell asleep. Geno sat back down in the chair next to the bed, continuing to keep watch.

He wasn't losing Goth again.

Searcher mumbled something in his sleep.

Geno reached out and he gently rubbed the skull of the alternate of his son.

"Shhh... all's well." He said.

He calmed down, falling deeper into sleep.

"Mama?" A confused, tired voice asked.

"I'm here Gothy." Geno said, as Shades opened his eyes, seeing the sleep hazy figure of his mama.

"This has to be a dream." Shades whispered.

"Why's that?" Geno asked, Shades felt himself falling back into sleep, cuddling closer to his counterpart.

"Because Fate never allowed it in the past, had to.. do... duty.. zzzzz," Shades mumbled exhausted, and he fell back into asleep, dead to the world.

Geno clenched his hands and he gritted his teeth, of course Fate was involved.

"Fate's a Meep." Searcher said in his sleep, and even in his sleep, he knew not to swear in front of his Mom, or a counterpart of his Mom.

Reaper peered into the door, taking in the sight of an exhausted Geno, their sleeping offspring and an alternate Goth, who was using his Kid as a Teddy bear. "Did they wake up at all?' Reaper asked softly. "A few times, I think that they thought they were dreaming. Reaper... Gothy said Fate was involved." Geno said, Reaper swore softly. Things were starting to make sense, and not in a good way. "I'll get Shiro and Raven to school, and set out breakfast for you all." Reaper said. "Thank you dear, I have a feeling that we will not like what we hear." Geno said, looking stressed.

Reaper peered into the door, taking in the sight of an exhausted Geno, there sleeping offspring and an alternate Goth who was using his Kid as a Teddy bear.

"Did they wake at all?' Reaper asked softly.

"A few, I think they thought they were dreaming. Reaper... Gothy said Fate was involved," Geno said, Reaper swore softly.

Things were starting to make sense, and not in a good way.

"I'll get Shiro and Raven to school, and set out breakfast for you all," Reaper said.

"Thank you dear, I have a feeling we will not like what we hear," Geno said looking stressed.

OoOoO

Searcher twitched as he woke up. He was still curled around Shades, using his counterpart as a Teddy bear. His headache had become a migraine from hell.

"Mph.." Shades said, making a cute sound in his sleep.

"Owww..." He winced as he opened one of his eyesockets, closing it quickly when the light hit his eyelight.

"That sounds painful, stay there, I'll get some water and a bit of monster food to tide you over." A voice said, and then, there was the sound of someone walking away, and the sound of running water, probably in another room.

He slowly untangled himself from Shades, before he opened his eyesocket a bit.

"Who's there? Mom?"

The footsteps slowly came back, and the sound of a glass being put down was heard.

"Do you need help dear, I'm afraid... I'm not your mother." Came the voice, who he was now able to recognize as Geno's.

"You're Shades's Mom?" He tried to get up.

Strong arms reached around him and they helped him to sit up.

"Shades, is that his nickname then?" Geno asked.

"It's how we tell each other apart." He slowly lended into the touch. "From each other and all of the other Goth's who know how to travel to different Multiverses."

"And I thought that multiple copies in other AU's was bad enough, now what do we call you?" Geno asked, and he carefully passed the glass of water to Searcher.

"Searcher." He carefully sipped at the water. "But I can be called Ser too."

"It's very nice to meet you Searcher, now let me get the cuddlebug up." Geno said looking at Shades, who was still in a deep asleep and he had rolled closer to Searcher's side again.

"Gothy, its time to get up. Reapapa made pancakes for you." Geno said simply.

Shades popped up, his eyesockets were wide open, not even wincing from the pain that he too, was clearly feeling.

"Pancakes!" Shades said, for all hail the pancake king Reaper. Then he was pulled into the arms of Geno who began to cry.

"Don't you dare vanish like that ever again Goth, or you'll be grounded till the end." Geno said through his tears.

"I'm sorry mama, I'm sorry." Shades cried into his mother's chest.

Searcher looked away, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. He missed the touch of his Mom so much...

Geno with that sixth sense all mothers had, grabbed Searcher and he brought him into the mom hug of doom.

He gasped, before he started to cry, wrapping his arms around Geno.

"My Mom's going to give me the exact same speech, because I vanished in front of him like Shades did in front of you."   
OoOoO

In Searcher's Multiverse, Geno stopped in the middle of making breakfast for his children. One of his baby bones was crying. Goth was crying.

"Where are you Gothy?" He asked. "Where are you baby bones?"

OoOoO

"Why is Shades so excited about Pancakes?" Searcher asked, a few minutes later. He was enjoying the Mom hug of Doom. He didn't know how he was doing this, but he was actually purring, thanks to the hug.

"Your Papa isn't a pancake King?" Shades asked, looking like the world was ending.

"Well, my Mom is the Waffle Queen, so he doesn't usually cook Breakfast for us, and it doesn't help that Uncle Grim makes him take the morning shift a lot." Searcher frowned. "He still takes the time to greet us in the morning but when he does cook, it's normally lunch or dinner."

"Huh... Mama burns waffles, probably one of the split timelines things, then you're in for a treat." Shades said cheerfully.

"Food children." Geno said with a laugh and he got up, somehow carrying both of them to the kitchen, where three plates of pancakes and multiple syrups waited for them. The fact that they were still fresh, was a clue that magic was working at the table.

Searcher was drooling, it smelled so good. Geno put both of them down in chairs, and then, he sat down himself.

"Dig in." Geno said reaching for maple goodness.

Shades brightened up and he dropped fresh butter, real maple syrup and fresh sliced strawberries on his pancakes.

Searcher dropped chocolate syrup, some freshly sliced bananas and blueberries on his pancakes, before he started to eat them.

Shades grinned as he ate and waited for the reaction that he knew was coming.

Searcher took one bite of a pancake before he smiled. "This is so good!" He said. "I have to get my Dad to make breakfast more often if he can cook pancakes that taste like this!"

Moments later, Reaper slipped into another seat, with his own pancakes.

"Alright Kiddos, the jig is up. You mentioned Fate in your sleep, and to all my senses, you're registering as if your one person, even your magic..." Reaper said as he poured his syrup onto his pancakes. "Which is impossible, even for alternates from other AU's and multiverses."

"Wait, you're that Reaper that I met in the Library." Searcher said.

"..." Shades said looking at anywhere but his father.

Searcher put his fork down. "You deserve to know the truth." He eventually said. "Fate was the one responsible for both of us going missing two years ago. It happened at the exact same time. Fate took us, because...." He started to cry and his form started to glitch.

"Ser.." Shades said, getting up and hugging his counterpart.

"No..." Reaper said. "It can't be..."

"It's true." He wrapped his arms around Shades. "We're not just children of Death, we're Destroyers of Worlds too."

"Dear..?" Geno asked confused, Shades looked at the floor unhappily.

Would this be a rejection.. if it was..

He didn't know what he'd do.

"Who gave Fate the right to turn my Baby Bones into him?!" Reaper yelled, before he rushed over to them and he pulled them into a hug. "I don't care if you're Error! You're still my son!"

"..." Geno said.

"FATE DID WHAT TO MY BABY!" He screamed.

And he did an actual Error type crash.

Okay... not a rejection.

"Mama!" Shades cried, rushing around the table.

"Why do I have the feeling that Fate is going to die?" Searcher asked, before he froze. "And nearly everyone that has hurt Error, even if we got our memories back at the same time that our past self was taken..."

"Please, don't tempt Papa Searcher, and I have doubts that the other deities are going to allow an Absolution of Fate." Shades said unhappily, as Reaper gently carried Geno back to their room.

"Okay, I won't, but... how are we going to explain about the spilt Multiverse?" He poked at a pancake. "And that we actually used to be one skeleton?"

"I have it all figured out ahead of time!" Shades cackled, and he slammed a book down on the table with the title 'Split Multiverses and you 101.'

"Well, that could work." He ate some more of his pancakes.

Shades gave him a rather dry look. "You made one too, didn't you?"

"Made what?" He asked.

"A book to explain, or a video or something." Shades said eating his own pancakes, he knew Ser too well.

He smirked, before he pulled out a sphere, one that looked like that it would split into two.

Shades facepalmed, he knew it.. he bet that Ser had overdone it too, when he should have been sleeping.

"Why...." He sighed, and he pushed away his empty plate.

"I had to explain it in a way that Horror would understand."

"Ahhhh." Shades said, as if it explained all, and in some ways, it did.

Searcher finished eating his pancakes.

"Soo.. these will explain it to Mama and Papa, but for some reason, I feel like I'm forgetting something.." Shades said, frowning.

In a dark AU, Nightmare sneezed, scaring the others.

"I really feel like we should be remembering something." He said.

"Me too, I mean, it's not like I told anyone else about you, apart from Papa and the others."

"Leave these here and flee till Papa and Mama cool down?" Shades whispered to Ser.

"Yeah, let's do that. We can come back later."

Suddenly, hands came down on their shoulders and a dark aura filled the air.

"And where did you think you're poor grounded souls will be going?" Geno said with a wide smile, a smile that made them tremble in fear. A smile that the Error would flee from, it didn't matter that they were the most powerful being in their own Multiverses, other than the Guardians...

Geno was boss.

"Nowhere Mom!" Searcher whimpered. "We were just trying how to figure out how to explain some of the other things that have happen to us, to you."

Geno's look said that he believed none of that.

"Now...let's go to the family room where we can discuss everything." Geno said, there was no escape.


	18. Interlude: What has happened so Far!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally not Crack interlude.. okay it is. enjoy

Goth: Eeeeeeeeeek  
Geno: Ma baby =Wack Fates head=

Reaper: Nope.. just nope  
Is Kidnapped.  
 _Ploink_

An Error is Born! er... Formed.. Kidnapped in the past!

OoOoO

Error chilling in the anti-void

Time runs over and wacks Error as it catches up

Error: Wut!

....

Mass panic.

Error: Wait...

Goth skips off all sunshine and flowers.

FREEEEEEDOM!

Fate: =facepalm=

OoOoO

Nightmare: Mwaaa ha ha ha!  
Goth: pouts

Nightmare: Tea?

Goth: This didn't happen and you know it!

Fire: =takes picture of Goth tied up wearing a dress forced to have tea=

OoOoO

Dum dum dum dum

Ohh.. awwww

Ink and Error waltzes by.

Dum dum dum

OoOoO

Books

Books

More Books

Disguised Goth: Sorry Reaper your princes.. er Son is in another castle

Reaper: =Looks at future script= wait.. you sure?

Fire: No Cheating! That's what Blue is For!

Blue appears and yeets script.

OoOoO

Insert moment of Destiny!

No not you Destiny!

=Kicks Destiny out= the nerve!

Enter Searcher!

Searcher: Hello my other half, my amigo. My bud in the other side of this split multiverse

Shades: =facepalm=

Searcher: I searched long and Hard! For we have the same Destiny!

=Kicks Destiny out again=

Shades: Riggght... lets find our Inks soul and get you some sleep and food.

OoOoO

Stalks Palette

Nightmare: =Stalks Goth for shits and giggles=  
Goth: =sighs and leaves=

OoOoO

Stalking Take 2!

Goth: =Stalks=

Retconned appears

...

=Kicks Goth out with cookies=

Join the Dark side, we have cookies!

And Retconned Goth who makes them

Wait.. what do you mean he's not dark side.

NOOOOOOOOoooooo.. don't make me return the darkside t-shirt

OoOoO

Evil figure

Plots

evil Plots...

Yeah.. that works.

OoOoO

Inky and Dream: RUN AWAY

ERROR: DIIIIIIE!

Inky: Apparently not sex

Error: Still dead to me!

OoOoO

Goth: Noped

Shell: =grins=

Is teased and trolled by Shell and Admins

Goth uses Escape!

It is super effective!

OoOoO

Goth: =Falls over=

FEAR ME! I AM _Gack_

Shell: Bad Fear Bad! =spritzes Fear vibe=

Goth: ...

Shell: Off to Save your counterpart!

NINJA VANISH!

OoOoO

Goth Pokes A naj Verse

NajVerse: Nope nope Nope

Giant Hole

Goth: =Looks down and falls down cartoon style=Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

BEHOLD A TEMPLE!

Oh Look a partial Soul!

Here, as the final visitor have a Guardian too.

Goth: I despise you

Love you too!

OoOoO

Geno: Whelp Goth is grounded

Reaper: ...

Geno: What is it dear?

Reaper: Why are you allowed to break the forth wall?

OoOoO

Temple fight!

Poson!

Acid!

Fight Fight Fight!

I choose you Shades and Searcher!

Temple Guardian: ROAR =crumbles=

But the rest of the soul is not there, so you still failed.

Hey! Just because this isn't exactly Canon doesn't mean you can give Fate the finger!

Little Brats!

Ser Back in between and Shades yeets off.

_Boing_

Parents

Too late.

So sad.

The Search Continues!

OoOoO

False Lover Plots

The Soul was stolen!

False Lover is Revealed as Fear already!

Stop using the name False lover!

Fear: Can I decide on this?

NO

OoOoO

Goth: Owww hurt hurt ...

Spends time with Pally disguised

Sadly not a date.

Palette: =Not fooled at all=

Still Not a date.

Epic moment of Searcher got hurt so Gothy got hurt.

Nom nom nom

Healed!

Goth.. er.. Disguised Goth off to help Searcher.

The Still not a date ends.

OoOoO

Searcher...

Wow..now that's a snake

Pulls out a measuring Tape

Not the time Fate!

Shades uses Break reality and saves the day.

Searcher Earns Title: There was no soul

OoOoO

A Wild Nightmare appears!

I choose you Searcher!

Searcher used Meltdown!

It was super effective!

OoOoO

Insert Doomed AU!

Ink Has created DanceChickenDreamTale

Chaos The Temmie Mauls Ink Boi.

Error destroyed the AU.

The Omniverse throws a celebration.

OoOoO

Gothy boi packs supplies.

Nightmare Uses Mother Hen.

Yet is Dadded.

OoOoO

Epic Snow Journey!

No Not Snow the editor!

Nevermind shes sneaking in the background.

Searchers Reaper goes Missing in Action!

HOLY BATMAN! To The Library!

OoOoO

Searcher is upset

Shades uses Comfort!

The Hugs are awesome <3

I mean super effective!

Wait...

...

Shades never got the talk

Excuse me while I hide

Searcher Gains new title: Over protective Brother

Knock Knock

There's an admin that strangely looks familiar and its not Fire.

And a party invite

Stress relief here they come!

OoOoO

Too many Blues

Way Too many Blues

Jackets are Stolen.

Epic jealousy

Someone else got Poth.

Searcher gains new title: Ser

Searcher uses Meltdown.

Searcher Learns Feeling Guilty when its over!

Time to go home Early!

OoOoO

Gothy boi learns float

And not the peter Pan type!

So Stop asking for happy thoughts already.

Gothy boi keeps hearing other Fates giving plot Hints for other multiverses,

Still too much Research at the library.

Then Sulks as Ser gets to talk to his momma.

OoOoO

Ser has Epic big brother Freak out

Bonding and Research

You know the drill

Zzzzzzz

Fate! Stop sleeping!

OoOoO

Oh Look another Temple...

Yeah?

Ice and Snow....

wait....

excuse me while the admins stop slipping into snow

Chaos.. stop Building Snow Temmies!

Fire Stop helping!

Aww.. what a cutie wootie tiny bear Creature

Mu...

Yes You

Mu

....

Nevermind, its evil

Ser uses Break Reality

Shades cheats reality with a powerup

Ser uses Scythe of Death is used

Ah how the cookie crumbles

I mean Guardian crumbles.

Hello Darling Inky soul part 2!

Naptime.

Mama Geno appears and Kidnaps the kids.

OoOoO

Achievement Unlocks: Home Again

Bonding with Parents

Reaper Gains: Pancake King Title

The Truth is Out.

Ser uses Teach.

Where did he get that huge chalkboard, science clothing and glasses?

Ser gets lost in technical Research mode instead of explaining.


	19. Chapter Sixteen: In the End It was Broken

Shades gave a sigh as they were hustled by mama into the family room, it hadn't changed at all in the time he was gone which was a relief in many ways.

If it had changed...

He just knew that he was glad his home was the same.

Sure they were linked to the anti-void, and part of there code read them as part of it... but it was never home not even when it drove them insane.

He wondered if they did free themselves from there Fate as Error, would they till be linked to the anti-void?

The smaller local Goth found himself situated on the love seat with Ser, his other settled beside him. He rolled his eye at seeing him pull out his scarves, clearly Ser was out of his comfort zone.

Sometimes Ser was such a shy bean.

He gently places a hand on Ser, he could just see him start to tremble.

"Ser... we need to start," he said quietly, gently tugging on the others sleeve.

"I know." The taller Goth said, looking at Shades when he felt him tugging on his sleeve. "Just give a minute to calm down okay?"

He took a deep breath in and he exhaled, smelling the scent of Palette from his scarf. It helped him to calm down. He looked at Reaper and Geno. "So... Here we are, what do you guys want to know?"

"Explain to me the Error part, since Error has been around since the beginning, long before you were even born." Geno asked, rubbing in between his eyes.

"Well, do you remember when Shades was taken right in front of you two years ago?" Searcher asked. "Because that is when Fate took us, but the story behind why Fate took us actually begins with Ink.... A long time ago... When he had a Soul."

"Ink... had a soul?" Reaper said in surprise.

"Yes he did, and it still exists." Shades replied, and carefully, he pulled out the two pieces of soul that he'd managed to retrieve. It was definitely a Monster Soul, but it glimmered with a beautiful array of colors that shimmered with a gentle light. "These are the pieces of Inky's Soul that I have retrieved so far."

"I haven't found the Soul of my Ink, but I am finding pieces of a key that should open wherever it is." He carefully pulled out the key piece from his first temple. "I think that I know where the next piece of the key is."

"That's great Searcher, oh! I have carvings from the ice temple to show you! It might tell me where Ink's soul essence is!" Shades said, ever cheerfully.

"Boys, focus.. back to explaining." Geno pointed out, Shades blushed purple.

Searcher blushed as well, he had been about to start asking Shades to show him the carvings from the ice temple.

"Well, Dream isn't the first time that Ink has been in love..."

"Don't you mean obsessed with Dream?" Shades snickered.

"Boys..." Geno said, tapping a foot.

"Okay, basically, as a Child of Fate, Ink had a powerful Soul and his First Love, only wanted his Soul for his power." Searcher said.

"This is where it gets awkward..." Shades moaned. "We call this love, the False Lover, I won't say his true name, since it might bring their attention to you. You already know resets... what we have here is a divergent timeline caused because there was only two ways that it could have ended. But instead of creating a new AU... it literally shattered the Multiverse into two new Multiverses, with each one based on one of the two endings."

"And it spilt everyone in half." Searcher said, holding up his sphere model, which he quickly broke apart, into two pieces. "The piece in my left hand is your Multiverse, and the piece in my right hand is my Multiverse. It is why, Reaper, we register as one person to your senses, because we used to be a single Skeleton."

"What were these endings?" Geno asked, trying not to think of the once one thing.

"Fate told Ink that he could not be with the False lover, because, you see, Ink had a soulmate but they had yet to be born." Shades replied.

"Soulmates are special." Reaper said with a grin, leering at Geno who blushed, remembering how long it had taken for his soulmate to admit that they were soulmates.

"Papa, in our timeline, Ink denied Fate as they were lonely and they loved the False lover. But it was truely one-sided, and with that, the Lover struck, stealing and hiding Ink's Soul in temples with Guardians. And as long as they were there, he had it's power, but.. I still don't understand why they haven't used Ink's power from his Soul. I'll probably find out when I find the essence. Searcher's side of the Multiverse.. started when Ink listened to Fate." Shades sighed.

"Yeah, but the thing is, what happens in one Multiverse can and will affect the other Multiverse." Searcher said. "The effect of Shades's Ink losing his Soul was bad on my Ink." There was tears in Searcher's eyes.

"And the Split affected my Fate too. She went insane.... Your Multiverse is the more positive side while mine is the more negative side. My Ink went insane, he overfilled and overpopulated my Multiverse with his creations, trying to find what he had lost, unaware of the fact that his insanity was caused by his Counterpart losing his Soul.

My Multiverse was filled to the point where it could have collapsed, because we didn't have an Error to destroy what wasn't needed, and that is what Error... No... We do. We make sure that doesn't happen, but it got so bad that my Fate did a Multiversal Reset and she reset everything back to the beginning, even Ink. She took his Soul and she hid it, because deep down, inside of herself, she remembered what happened and she didn't want it to happen again....

But without a Soul, Ink can not listen to Fate, he can not hear her warnings when she tries to tell him about the Balance... And since she wiped his memory, which is possibility the reason why he has Swiss Cheese Memory, he can't remember what will happen if the Multiverse gets too full..."

"Of course, that forced our Fate to reset as well, because of the link between the two Multiverses. I do know that other multiverses and Omniverses have Error's, and I did look into them to see why we were chosen, but set events didn't happen. Only Fate can tell us why we were chosen as Error. But they did unlock our true selves and our memories a while ago, I know why they were locked because technically, we existed in two places at the same time, for a while, and they were unlocked a bit after we were taken. I wanted to go home... but we're still Error, and unless we can repair Ink, we'll be forced to continue to be the Destroyer." Shades said unhappily.

"And the only way to repair Ink is to get his Soul back." Searcher said. "We remembered on the very day that we were taken from our families and thrown back into time, closing the paradox that was caused when we was born, because our Soul was in two different places at the same time."

Searcher was quiet for a few seconds. "But... despite the fact that we still register as one Skeleton, we are different. Our Multiverses may be linked, but what happens in one Multiverse might not happen in the other one and one of the biggest differences that I have found, apart from our height, is that Sorell doesn't exist in your Multiverse..."

A pained look went across Geno's face, and Reaper looked broken for a moment.

"Mama... Papa?" Shades asked, concerned.

"It's nothing dear, we're fine." Geno said, his smile was more sad then it usually was but, they clearly weren't fine....

"Are you sure?" Shades asked, worried.

"We're sure," Reaper replied.

Searcher froze at the look on their faces. "I'm sorry." He said, doing a nervous tick of his, gently rubbing the area around his right eyesocket. "I'm so sorry..."

"It's fine Searcher, it's been a very long time and it's no ones fault." Geno said, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

He nodded his head. "Was it _them_?" He asked. " _He_ didn't like the union between Mom and Dad back in my Multiverse..."

"Ser... it wasn't who you're thinking, it was literally an unstable Geno from a failed Aftertale copy." Shades whispered, he might have been very young, but he had been there.

"Oh... I see..." He said, sighing, rubbing the area around his right eyesocket again. There was a slight grey tinge around it, it was unnoticeable, unless you was really looking for it.

The taller Goth suddenly hissed in pain, closing his right eye.

"Are you okay?" Shades asked in concern.

"I'm fine." Searcher kept his right eye closed. "It's normal for me, I'm used to my right eyesocket occasionally misbehaving like this, but this is the first time since I was taken that it has acted up like this...."

"Ser, that sounds more like an old injury acting up." Shades said staring at his other, giving him a rather flat look. He climbed over to the other side of the love seat, and onto Searcher's lap. It was for the best that he looked into this, Ser would probably freak out from the others touch. He raised his hands and he lightly tilted Searcher's head a bit, before he frowned. "Ser... your other eyesocket is scarred... I can barely see the scaring on its edges."

"What?" Searcher asked. "A scar? I don't remember getting it and I never was seriously injured in the eyes whenever I was Error..."

"Um.. do you want me to use my magic to see the cause?" Shades asked frowning, still holding Ser's face.

"You can do that?" Searcher asked, before he frowned. "You know, now that I think about it, it always acted up after a nightmare, one that I have been having since I was a kid. Mom always said that I used to wake up screaming, with a hand over that eye... I need to know Shades... Do it."

"Um.. just be aware, this can cause flashbacks... To things that people forget." Shades said nervously.

"I'll be fine Shades. Do it."

"Try not to fight it." Shades said, and for a moment, his voice seemed to echo. His eyelight was no longer purple but a pure determined red with gold specks. He dived forward with his mind before Ser could react.

And he saw the world as no one should.

Everything was codes.

Codes.. Data...

Everything that was and would be...

But what would be was locked from him by Fate, and aspects of the past were locked as well.

He had reached this place by accident as Error the first time, and he learned how to use it afterwards to keep up with Ink and destroy corrupted AU's.

But unknown to him, his body looked like it had golden 'codes' flowing on it in golds and shadows and his normal purple magic.

Yet, he saw nothing of this, for he was centered on Searcher.

Phantom 'hands' of his mind reached forward.

Yes, here it was.

A broken memory, childhood coding...

"Fatal..." He said.

And he yelped as he was forced out by Searcher's sudden fear, back to normal. But it was too late, the memory was free.

"Searcher!" He cried outside of what he called his code state.

"I.... I remember..." He whispered. "Damn it..." He was crying.

"I'm sorry..." Shades whispered, sounding the age that his soul actually was, Geno and Reaper could only watch on, bewildered about this rather private moment.

Searcher was shaking. "I remember now, back when I was Error and before I remembered who I was. Fate suddenly screamed at me one day. She didn't want another Error running around the Multiverse, and she wanted me to calm the potential Error down, but when I got there, most of the Gods that had attacked Mom, Dad and my past self had taken out by Mom. Mom wasn't a glitch anymore. He was Fatal Error. I had to calm him down, but while I was calming him down, I saw... myself, screaming....

Mom was holding me close to him, trying to calm me down but my crying wouldn't stop. I was just a year old... Mom eventually became Mom again and Dad had nearly lost a wing....

But now, I remember that attack as a baby, it took..." He traced the scar around his eyesocket.

"An eyelight... you were born with it..." Shades said sadly, his eyelight still had flecks of gold. He didn't tell Ser, that the Multiverse itself had probably forced the issue to keep the fragile balance between the two sides as there were too many differences already. He closed his eyes, he could hear a whisper of their voice.

Yes... the darker Fate had done it.

When he opened his eyes again, his eyelight was it's normal purple shade again and glimmering with tears.

Geno exchanged looks with Reaper, mouthing words to his mate. Neither of the Goths noticed. But if one saw it and they lip read the words, they would have seen 'screaming nightmares', 'child' and 'eye infection' for some unknown reason.

He wiped the tears away from his eyes with his left hand.

"Let's talk about these temples and Guardians.." Reaper said, trying to ease the tension and the cuteness of the scene of tiny Goth in his larger counterpart's lap.

"Okay..." Searcher tried his best to put a smile on his face. "I just need to get a glass of water."

"You sure?" Shades asked worriedly, back to his normal, less otherworldly self. His code self could be a bit too much for some people.

"Yeah, it would help me a lot."

"Okay," Shades said, slipping off his lap so Ser could get some water.

He got up, and everything seemed to be fine.

The first sign that something was wrong was the room spinning around him. His legs shook as he leaned against a wall.

He couldn't breathe, he tugged at the neckline of his shirt and the scarfs around his neck, trying to move them so that he could breathe properly. His eyelight was shaking...

His legs gave out on him and he fell to the floor with a crash, he was still trying to breathe, sweat started to roll down his face as he coughed, gasping for air.

Everything around him was so fuzzy, he couldn't hear or see anything properly, he could see the spots covering his vision.

And then, there was voices, trying to break through the static that he was hearing, but it wasn't enough....

The last thing that he saw was his shadow twisting...

"Searcher!" Shades cried in horror.  
One moment Ser had been fine, shaken not stirred from the memory he'd unlocked.  
Then he'd dropped like a puppet loosing there strings, and he knew puppets and strings for as Error he'd become a string master.  
He jumped off the love seat towards Ser, his parents right beside him.

Searcher was now a crumpled mess on the floor, Shades and his parents were rushing over to him, when Reaper suddenly held them back. "No! Don't go near him!"

"Reaper!" Geno was about to yell at his Husband, when a soft, haunting music filled the room.

"Papa?" Shades asked, confused.

Searcher's shadow was twisting and morphing, into a form that they all knew. The eyelights were glowing as it cradled it's son close to itself.

"Another papa... kinda?" Shades said confused, edging slightly closer.

The Remnant glared at them all, until it's eyes landed on Geno. Reaper let go of him. "You can go near him now, but be careful, it will attack you if it thinks that you are going to hurt it's son."

It was now soundlessly crooning to Searcher, wrapping it's wings around the unconscious skeleton.

"Um... Mr Reaper? Is Searcher.. your Gothy okay?" Shades asked worriedly, slowly getting closer.

"Goth, when my scythe was forged, I infused it with my Magic and Marrow, sealing an Remnant, an Echo of myself within it. His Reaper must have done the same thing, but for it to be here with the Kid and not the Dad... something must have happened to his Reaper, and because of that, the Kid must have his Dad's scythe now."

"He's missing, I felt an echo of him vanishing all the way in our multiverse. Ser found it and some of Mr Reaper's things when he returned to his temples remains later." Shades whispered, by now he was right in front of Ser and the Remnant.

"But right now, it doesn't seem to trust any of us." Reaper watched as the Remnant tried to get a reaction from Searcher by nuzzling him. "Apart from Geno, because it thinks that you are his Geno, the Remnant won't know anything about what the Kids have told us until it's Reaper can update it's knowledge, it can create memories of it's own, but it can't understand them without it's Reaper to explain what happened in them...."

The Remnant looked at Shades, before it reached out and it patted Shades on the head.

Shades giggled, he couldn't help it. It felt just like Papa doing that. Then he yawned, it wasn't even lunchtime yet and he was exhausted. Ser had accidentally pulled energy from him in his panic, whatever... he'd just eat more later.

"It will only trust the only other skeleton here that doesn't have a double, you Geno, because it believes that you are it's Geno, but it seems that you did something to make it trust you a bit Gothy."

The Remnant nuzzled it's son again, it could sense just how fragile it's Baby Bones really was. He needed time to rest and recover, time that he didn't have. It looked at it's Baby Bones's friend before it pulled him into the cuddle.

"Apparently its naptime, I can take the hint." Shades giggled, he cuddled closer to Ser and he allowed himself to fall asleep.

It was just that kind of day.

The Remnant soundlessly chuckled, carefully rubbing the back of it's Baby Bones before it looked at Geno.

"Let me get them back to bed then." Geno said, striding forward, more questions could wait until the two of them were mentally ready to continue.

The Remnant handed Shades over to Geno, but it kept Searcher in it's grasp. The taller Goth looked younger then he actually was when he was sleeping. The Remnant covered him with a wing.


	20. Chapter Seventeen: Fluff

Error screamed.

Glitches and errors on his body going crazy.

Static was so load it was extremely painful to hear.

It had been an accident.

He hadn't even meant to do it.

His very being seemed to be in a glitched loop.

INPUT  
INPUT

CODE ERROR – DESTRUCTION – BALANCE

INPUT

INPUT

CODE INK – CREATOR- BALANCE

INPUT

DATA NOT FOUND

SPATIAL MULTIVERSE LOOP DETECTED

RELOA...

ERROR

ERROR

PASSWORD NOT FOUND

INPUT

DATA SEALED BY FATE

OUTPUT

FATE – FORCE LOG OFF

With a gasp Error fell to the 'ground' of the anti-void, his eye lights mere pricks of light.

He breathed deep gasps, his bones still shocky.

"What was that.." he gasped out voice shaky, wincing as codes seemed to fade in and out of his eyesight.

_**Don't do that again** _

"Sorry Fate, have no clue.. just suddenly pulled there," he replied back at the rare voice of Fate.

_**You are not Ready for there, but now you have access I will have to make sure you use it properly and not bring about Ruin** _

Error would only remember waking up from a reboot, head pounding in pain and access to teh coding of the multiverse.

Well... some of it.

He still wasn't sure how he had gained access too it in the first place.

OoOoO

"Up Up..." a voice said.

Slowly Goth woke, his body felt as if it was a million miles away.

Some days he woke like this or just become as the Error, feeling stretched thin and his body almost feeling disconnected from him. He'd be rather clumsy on these days, thankfully they were rare.

"Brother up!" a worried voice said.

His eyes slammed opened, he reached out and pulled the one waking him up from the memory/nightmare into a hug.

"Shino," he cried, hugging his little sister.

"Gothy isn't allowed to vanish again!" Shiro wailed into his chest.

"Sorry... sorry Shino," Goth whispered, he had missed his sibling so much.

Suddenly he heard the door nob moving, looking up he blinked.

A fell Goth?

OoOoO

Searcher snickered when he saw Shades hugging his Shino. He pulled back his hood a bit so that Shades could see his face.

"I totally forgot that we had planned on this jokingly." Shades said, with a slight blush, brushing a few tears away.

"Another Gothy." Shino giggled, wiping away her tears.

"Yeah, I'm another Gothy, but you can call me Searcher, or Ser if that is easier for you to say."

"Searchy." Shino said, nodding to herself, Shades giggled.

He chuckled as he walked over to her, dropping his clothes on the chair as he went past it. He knelt down so that he could talk to her properly. "Do you wanna know a secret that only your big brother knows?" He asked, making it look like he was whispering to her.

"Secrets, secrets are fun. Shino goes to school now and can keep secrets." The tiny skeleton said cheerfully.

"I have wings." Searcher said. "And they're fluffy."

"Like Papa!" Shino squealed, Shades giggled, knowing that Ser was about to be treated like a giant stuffed toy as Shino loved fluffy and/or cute things. It was really too bad that Shino and Raven were born normal skeletons, longer lived sure... but they were.. rather mortal, compared to Reaper, and even Geno, who was too determined to die.

"Yes, like your Papa. Do you wanna see them?"

"Just bring them out Ser, she'll start squealing like a fangirl if you don't do it soon." Shades smirked, it was a shame that Shino and Raven would never gain wings.

He carefully brought out his Dad's scythe, keeping it hidden from Shino, before his wings burst through the slits in his cloak. He carefully moved one of his wings closer to Shino.

And the wing quickly became a teddy bear to Shino, who had scrambled from Shades's arms.

"Flufffffffff...." Shino said, in fluff heaven. Shades laughed heavily, and he accidentally fell out of the bed... stupid clutzy day.

He chuckled, letting Shino hug his wing. "Are you okay Shades?"

"Just one of those days, just expect me to be clutzy as heck today... hopefully I won't be needed at..." Shades said trailing off, really hoping that he wouldn't be needed as the Error today.

Mind you, the few times Ink tried to fight him as Error, on the days that he was like this, the fights could get hilarious.

Ink had even written on his scarf to avoid Error on the days that he was like this, if it was possible.

He was pretty sure that Nightmare still had the video of the last few fights.

"Oh, it's one of those days? I have them too, occasionally... Where I just don't want to move."

"Good, then.. I'm just going to lay here on the floor, pretending that the Multiverse doesn't exist." Shades said, closing his eyes. "And Inky just created an Au..."

"Do you need to deal with it?" Searcher asked. "I can go if you don't want to..."

"No, we fight slightly differently as Error. Can you tell Mama and Papa where I have gone, if they come up here while I'm away?" Shades said, sitting up. "Yeah, besides, it looks like that I'm not going anywhere." He wrapped his other wing around Shino. "Thanks.. I'll be as quick as this allows." Shades said, and he shortcuted away.

OoOoO

Hidden from sight, two figure watched the battle between two titans.  
Gods of Destruction and Creation.  
Yin and Yang.  
They Watched.  
"Do you think they are ready?" the first asked a smaller figure.  
"..." The second said to quiet to be heard by any but the other.  
"Let's get you back," the first said, and they were gone without anyone knowing they had been there.  
OoOoO

Shades walked out of a portal and he blinked, Searcher and Shino were lying on the floor, drawing with art charcoal. Quite a few pictures were already done, but he'd been gone for almost two hours. Ser's wings were fluffy guardians over his sister.

And it was at this point that he was glad that he had access to the codes, and he had 'screen captured' pictures of the cute scene.

"I'm back, everything turned out okay. Everything good here?' he asked joining the duo on the floor.

Searcher looked up when he heard the portal, to see Shades walking through it. "Yeah." He watched as Shades joined them. "Everything's good here, and I can practically smell the food that your Mom is cooking from here."

"I wonder what it will be, since we missed lunch and it's still a bit early for dinner." Shades asked, grabbing a spare charcoal and some paper.

"Well, knowing my Mom, when he cooks at a time like this, it's going to be a big dinner." Searcher smiled. "I think that he's cooking a big dinner because he's happy, because you're home."

"I'm happy to be home, and with any luck, you'll be home next." Shades said smiling, and beneath his hands, a rather well made charcoal drawing of their two Palettes was almost done.

"Yeah." He couldn't help but to smile at his own drawing, it was a family portrait, of his Dad, his Mom, himself and his Raven, Shino and Sorell.

"Are you ready? After dinner, we'll have to go over the carvings from both of the temples." Shades asked.

"I know." Searcher said.

But unknown to the two of them, a countdown was winding down.

One that had started Eons ago.


	21. Chapter Eighteen: Seeking Truth

Shades gently pulled over the carvings that he had removed from the walls of the ice temple, they were definitely magical as they were still cold to the touch.

He paused briefly as he came across a carving with the symbols for light and shadows overlapping each other, he placed that one down next to a series of carvings of what was apparently the story of Ink's soul being stolen.

Most of the carvings seemed to be of this, but unfortunately, none gave any hint of what face Fear was wearing.

There were still at least ten carvings that he still had to sort.

Searcher was in full research mode, he swore his other would be cooing over them if no one else was about.

The last ten seemed to be of his first temple with the mosaic for earth, the second with ice.. but none for a third temple. The third one was a throne and light? And the forth one was a symbol for the void.. and...

He blinked, an image of error, but with an image of himself or Ser as the Soul, with wings.

The rest of the carvings that he had found were doubles.

"Anything useful?" He finally asked Ser.

Searcher was close to cooing over the carvings, he was carefully comparing them to the charcoal rubbing that he had made of his key piece, trying to see if any of the symbols and the carvings matched.

But what was weird about the Key Piece was that it had carvings of Flames all over it....

"Not really, the carvings for the temples seem to be unique to your Multiverse, and that carving of Error, with us as the Soul, I saw that in my First Temple and I think that my Dad did too.

But the carvings with the throne, the light and the void, those are new to me, and it doesn't help that my Key Piece is covered in flame symbol, almost as if it is pointing me to my next temple."

"Do you ever have the feeling that Fate or someone else is trolling us Ser? After all, our Temples shouldn't overlap, right?" Shades asked, frowning.   
OoOoO

A being sneezed, while their companion looked on with concern.

"Is Big Brother sick?"

OoOoO

"Weirdly trolled at that.." Shades said, trailing off.

"Yeah..." Searcher's left eye was twitching.

"And if we are being trolled, I will strangle the one responsible for it, when I get my hands on them."

OoOoO

The companion sneezed this time.

He wondered if the Goth's were enjoying his artwork.

OoOoO  
"..." Shades said, having a feeling that Fate was laughing at them for some reason...

And it wasn't just his Fate, it was Ser's Fate too..

"Why do I have a feeling that we already know who is trolling us?" Searcher asked.

"We'll probably find out and groan about it." Shades said, as he packed away the mass doubles of the carvings, after separating out some of them, so that Searcher had some to keep for himself.

"Yeah..." The taller Goth packed away the charcoal rubbing of his key piece and his share of the carvings.

Fate giggled evilly.

"So what now, unless we can find more clues on my Ink's essence or hopefully, your fire temple, we don't have any leads. And the rest of the carvings don't make any sense." Shade grumbled, looking at the Light, light/shadow and Void carvings.

"Yeah, as if we haven't reached that part of the quest with the information that we need to understand these carvings."

"Quest Ser?" Shades giggled. "I think that we're both overstressed and we need a break, if you're thinking of this as a quest train from a game."

"Yeah..." Searcher was a bit embarrassed with himself for mentioning that. "But it does make some sense, we shot ahead with the physical part of the quest and now, we need to catch up on the mental part of it."

"I'm going to take a few days off with my family, and then, I'll try to look into it with a fresh perspective." Shades replied, he needed this badly.   
_POOF_

"Did someone say Fresh?!!" The multi colored skeleton said with a grin.

"We'll play later Fresh." Shades said, rolling his eyes, the parasite still seemed to pop up randomly, even when he wasn't Error. And how he knew about that, he wasn't telling anyone..

"Coolio." Fresh smirked.

_FRESH POOF_

"Right..." Shades said with a cough.

Searcher coughed as well. "I swear that he is actually helping out whoever is trolling us..." He said.

"It better not be possible..." Searcher muttered.

"Clearly, we need to relax if our thoughts are going in that direction." Shade said shivering at that thought.

Searcher nodded his head.

"We'll meet up in two weeks, after our rest from the Search to start up again?" Shades suggested.

"Yeah, I do have a friend that I want to check up on..."

Of course, at that moment, the door slammed open, and a figure glomped onto Shades.

"GOTHY!" Palette cried happily.

"..." Shades said, blushing like crazy.

Searcher laughed.

"Oh my gosh! Two Gothy's! You must be Searcher!" Palette said, with sparkly eyes, still not letting go of Shades.

"Wait..." Searcher was surprised. "How did you know that..."

"Well, I thought it was a dream, where I met another Palette. I called myself Truth and he called himself Seeker, and then, we started talking..." Palette said, and he began to began to ramble. But certain things stood out, Shell, Fear... Seeker was definitely Ser's Palette.

Searcher blushed and he covered his lower face with his scarf, but he soon dropped it when he heard about Fear. "Wait, Fear is after one of you?!"

"Yes, Mr. Shell didn't know everything though." Palette replied, and he outlined the dream meeting between the Palettes and Shell.

"Great..." Shades mumbled, he was still in his Palette's embrace.

He really wanted to swear. "Did Shell say anything else?" He asked.

"Mr.Shell told us what Error does... And that Seeker has to slow down his Ink." Palette said. "He also said something about your mental state being linked to the balance in your Multiverse."

"Riiight... I'm definitely glad we agreed to chill and relax for two weeks." Shades mumbled.

"That actually explains a lot." Searcher said. It did explain why, during the times that the balance of his Multiverse was stable, back when he had been Error, his mind had been a bit clearer then it usually was.

"Fun times..." Shades said sarcastically.

"Yep."

OoOoO

"I'm sorry," Goth whispered, he was on his bed with Palette laying beside him cuddling.

"Why?" Palette asked bewildered.

"I was scared, I should have told you who I was.. not pretended to be someone else," Goth replied sadly.

"Gothy... do you know why I chose the name Truth when I spoke to Mr. Shell and Seeker?" Palette asked smiling.

"No?" Goth said curious.

"I was never fooled, I saw the truth right away that the Fell Goth was my Gothy. You've never been able to pull the wool over my eyes," Palette giggled.

"Thank you..." Goth replied.

"Too bad our nicknames don't work together, Shades and Truth," Goth giggled.

"Shades of truth?" Palette giggled, Goth giggled more.

"Ser's nickname works with his Pally, Searcher and Seeker.. Search and seek... aka Hide and seek," Goth said teasingly.

"Do you think the multiverse is trying to tell Searcher something?" Palette asked.

"Nah, probably one of the infinite puns of a Sans type draws from," Goth replied.

OoOoO

"He's home... he's finally home," Geno whispered, Reaper was holding him tightly to his side.

"I know..." Reaper said, just in the next room was there eldest child and best friend.

"But why isn't this nightmare over," Geno begged, he had thought the nightmare had been over when Reaper had won his love and freed him from the save screen. Then... this terror of Goth being gothnapped by Fate, to be Error!

"We'll end this Geno, that..monster will be defeated and our family will be whole," Reaper promised, being careful not to mention Fear by name.

"Whole with a plus one with Searcher," Geno mused.

"Pretty sure Searcher's family will think the same," Reaper grinned.

"Don't let them die, I don't want you to claim them" Geno rasped touching his forehead to Reapers.

"My children aren't allowed to die," Reaper snarled, seeing that broken gaze of Genos when Sorrell was miscarried would break him.

OoOoO

"Dinner was great Mr. Geno," Palette said happily.  
"Were always happy to have you over Palette, and please you can call me Geno," Geno said as everyone finished eating.

"Okay," Palette beamed.

"Will you be staying the night?" Reaper asked.

"Yes, I already sent mom a message that I would be here tonight," Palette grinned, Goth looked even happier at that.

' _Young love'_ Reaper thought amused.

Palette was going to make his move.

OoOoO

"Oh, those are awesome," Palette said spotting Goth's pajama's, knitted purple top and leggings but had cat paws footwear and the top had hood with jaunty cat ears. It even had a soft tail, it looked very professionally done.

"Thanks," Goth blushed.

"Wait.. Gothy.. did you make this?" Palette asked in awe.

"Yeah... I learned to knit as the Error, and I grew since then so my clothing at home don't fit anymore so i made some," Goth said feeling a bit embarrassed, usually he just made puppets but all his extra clothing were at Nightmare's.

That reminded him, he really needed to talk to Nightmare soon.

"Gothy, want to try something?" Palette asked a strange in his eyelights.

"Sure!" Goth replied innocently, it was strange that Goth was still so innocent after his time as Error.

After all the horror and dust and levels, the screams and nightmares... and he didn't mean his friends in the bad sans either. He had checked himself since then, and found that he had quiet too many levels and experience then he wanted in his true body. His Error body was still sky high in levels, and both woudl continue to climb as long as Ink continued to create.

"It's called making out," Palette said blushing.

"Making out, sounds fun," Goth said happily, at this point in time it should have been pointed out neither had gotten the talk but Palette had... figured soem thinsg out.

_'Oh my Stars Shades! Palette just kissed me! He kissed me! Hekissedme! Hekissedme! Hekissedme! Hekissedme!!'_

'Really, now?' Goth thought getting the slightly scrambled message, but he was pleased for Ser.

'Busy... nice, sorry Pally is teaching me something called making out sounds fun' he replied.

_'Oh, have fun!'_

"Um... you were tapping on air?" Palette asked confused.

"Oh!" Goth said, and summoned up a screen and made it visible.

"Sorry Ser sent a message and I replied, I have access to some of the multiverse code due to being Error." he replied, he even had more access in his code mode. He quickly showed a bit fo code, the safe type of code that wouldn't melt peoples brain by accidentally.

That poor dance sans Copy, should never had demanded to see what the Error was working on.

At least the next reset had fixed him... mostly... kinda.. hopefully.

"Is everything okay?" Palette asked.

"He's freaking out because Seeker kissed him," Goth said cheerfully.

"Ahhh, well in that case... less talk of Searcher and lets make out," Palette said, and pulled Goth over and kissed him.

Goth squeaked and blushed.

OoOoO

Geno twitched.

"You don't think...." Reaper said as they heard Goth squeak.

"Boys...." Geno called out.

OoOoO

"Boys...."came mama's voice.

Goth was blushing up a storm, he pull his cat hood to cover up as much of his face as he could.

"Sleep tight Gothy," Palette said.

Goth wanted to die, and was this what people called aroused.

"Your a freaking tease," Goth whimpered.

"I know..." Palette smirked.

When had Palette grown up?

Goth... liked it?

OoOoO

The next day had Palette leaving with a quick kiss, a rather amused set of parents and waving his siblings off to school.

"Gothy... I think its time we talked," Geno said.

"Talk.. about what?" Goth said clueless.

"Don't worry, just a small talk we should have had years ago," Geno said leading his son to a private spot, Reaper wisely escaped.

The small future death was very glad no one else was there to hear it.


	22. Chapter Nineteen: I will give you what I have

Goth was in the anti-void, doing a quick check.

He sighed in relief to see that no one had manged to get to the souls, unless Fate ordered it or he saw a need none of them could be released to reset there AU.

Some could never be released unless Ink regained there soul, as they the Creator and needed there touch to correct there initial coding.

"Time is running out..." a voice whispered.

"Stars!" he cried spinning around, pulling out his scythe out for whoever stood there.

"Greetings child of Death and God of Destruction," the quiet voice said, the voice belonging to a darkly garbed skeleton that seemed to be hiding in shadows even though none existed in the anti-void.

"Umbra!" he said in surprise, he felt a bit weirded out that the mysterious being even older then Ink and himself knew that he was Error.

Gold with red flecks peered out of a shadowy hood, the lower half of the face hidden by there thick brown scarf. Goth as Error had run into Umbra plenty of times, he usually avoided a being that could ground Ink.

The being also stunk of Fate power, so he was likely controlled too.. and Goth had a sinking feeling the being could probably cross between the two multiverses with more ease then himself and Ser.

"You seek the essence," Umbra said.

"Yes, do you know where it is?" Goth begged hopefully.

"What you seek will not at a temple future Death, armor your soul or you will fail," Umbra said.

Then he was gone, as quickly as he had appeared.

"Don't be so cryptic!" Goth yelled into the ever empty anti-void.

OoOoO

Umbra sighed as they stepped onto white sand, they peered at the alter.

"Did big brother have fun?" the smaller being there asked.

"You know what, its more fun on the side giving the information then receiving it," Umbra giggled.

OoOoO

" **You know, if I Hadn't realized he would have made the first move I might of had to kill you,"** Nightmare smirked as soon as Goth appeared at his base, the small skeleton blushed.

Goth wanted to die.

"Dad no," Goth begged his second father figure.

" **Do I have to give you the talk, don't want to be a great uncle yet,"** Nightmare leered.

Goth had been going to visit his long time friend, he had forgotten Nightmare usually kept an eye on Error/Goths emotions due to past issues with the Star Sans.

Goth gave a small scream and fled his face horribly blushing.

OoOoO

" _ **I mean... what do I do when he kisses me next time?"**_ Error asked.

"Kiss him back! Kisses are great!" Ink chirped happily.

" _ **I**_ _ **t**_ _ **was my first one**_ _ **too,"**_ Error said blushing yellow.

"Aww.. that so cute," Ink awed his eyelights hearts.

"This.. is a battle to save the AU right?" Dream asked Blue, watching the two titans battle and chat like best friends at the same time.

"Yup," an over relaxed Blue said on a lawn chair replied, he ate more buttered popcorn.

"Where did you get those things anyway?" Dream asked confused.

"Over there," Blue said pointing, Dream turned and gaped.

"Yo!" Horror said from where he was grilling food.

"I made more popcorn," Dust said dropping onto a bean bag chair.

"Your all dead to me," Dream said and left.

Blue sipped on his pop.

OoOoO

Palette giggled.

Well that wasn't weird.

What was weird that it was a perverted giggle.

In his hands was a book.

' _500 ways to seduce your Shy friend'_

Palette giggled again.

"You going to buy that now?" the bored clerk asked.

"Yup," Palette said putting down the money, and left still giggling.

"Teens," the clerk sighed.

OoOoO

Once again Goth was in the anti-void, but out of sight and in a nest of strings far above.

He was making a few puppets to relax, then eh had to go destroy a few AU's.

"Kitty?" a voice asked.

"Um..." Goth said shocked looking up, to see a small white garbed child sitting across from him looking at the latest puppet.

How the heck had anyone got up here?

Also.. wasn't this the child that was spotted with Umbra all the time.

What were they called... Hikari?

"Kitty," the child said again.

Looking down he blinked, the puppet was of a cat instead of a Sans.

"You like cats huh..." Goth said, the child nodded.

"Here, enjoy," Goth said passing the puppet.

"Solas says thank you," the child said, and vanished.

"Well that happened."

OoOoO

Umbra sighed as his companion giggled.

"Kitty..."

He really didn't get the cat obsession.

OoOoO

"Sorry Inky, it has to be destroyed," Error said, grabbing the local Frisk's soul.

"Error! Stop destroying things!" Ink yelled angrily.

"Its corrupted,.. and spreading viruses," Error growled.

"But I haven't finished the card collections yet!" Ink cried tearfully, Error paused after dodging some paint and stared at Ink.

"Your protesting the destruction of TradingCardTale because your collecting cards here?" Error asked twitching.

"My collection!" Ink whined as the AU faded into nothing.

"You idiot, the virus was spreading by the cards!" Error snarled and stomped away.

He definitely didn't mention he'd already collected the cards, after he removed the viruses from the cards that is.

OoOoO

Two weeks were almost gone, and Goth was glad he'd gotten Searcher to agree.

They'd both needed down time.

Yet he could have lived without this.

All his life he'd had migraines, feeling as if he was stretched thin.

He could live with the migraines he got by staying to close to Ser, but the migraines were becoming more vicious as time went on.

Searcher didn't suffer them, he was glad as some days Goth found he couldn't even force himself up on those days.

What was the cause of these migraines? As migraines were not normal for skeleton monsters.

OoOoO

"Gothy!" a voice called, Goth blinked from where he was running errands in an AU.

"Palette," he cried happily, seeing his crush rushing towards him.

"Oh! I like your clothing!" Palette said, spotting Goths latest outfit.

A Black sweatshirt with a hood with cat ears, faded blue jeans and grey sneakers.. all this making his scarf stand out.

"Thanks..." Goth said blushing.

"Hey.. want to hang out today. You have to go back to searching soon right?" Palette asked.

"Sure," Goth smiled.

OoOoO

Two skeletons sat on a clock tower, licking there ice cream.

And no it wasn't sea-salt.

Hey... go back to the kingdom hearts idea pile..

Back I say...

"I wish everyday could be like this," Palette said happily.

"I hope one day it will be," Goth replied.

"Do you think dad will be okay once his soul is restored?" Palette asked.

"I hope so, he's brilliant at creating. But common sense seemed to go out the window when eh lost his soul," Goth replied, finishing his ice cream.

"What do you plan to do after, you won't be needed as the Error anymore?" Palette asked, teeth making quick work of his cone.

"Going home and hopefully being free, I might still have to visit the anti-void.. Fate linked me too tightly to it.. part of it is part of me and vise versa. But... I want too see the future," Goth said smiling.

"Me too," Palette replied sharing that smile.

Palette reached out and gently took Goths hand, and shifted over till they were shoulder to shoulder. Goth blushed, but leaned closer to the other.

"I'm sorry I never saw your feelings before you were taken," Palette whispered.

"I'm not, I was ready to wait..." Goth replied.

"Your too Determined, but I'm glad you waited," Palette breathed.

"Palette," Goth said looking up, and blinked at what happened.

Palette chose that moment to lean forward, kissing Goth deeply.

"Pa... palette," Goth squeaked as Palette pulled back.

"You don't have to wait anymore," Palette said

And kissed him again, blushing Goth enjoyed the kiss.

The world seemed to shatter around him.

Wait?

Shatter!

"Ow..." Goth cried as they landed in a pile together.

"Stars darn it," Palette cried the moment ruined.

"Here again..." Goth griped.

"Where is here?" Palette asked worried.

"In the In Between, the twilight between the split multiverses," Goth replied Gravely.


	23. Chapter Twenty: Burning Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again hit Wattpad for the art, too painful to load art here

"Pretty sure I'm not suppose to be here," Palette said nervously.

"Pretty sure no one is suppose to be here," Goth said unhappily "But if were here.. STARS DARN IT SER! You hit your next temple!"

Palette watched Goth walked back and forth, so far the area outside the between was too foggy to see.

"Bet that workaholic didn't take his full break either," Goth grumbled.

"Huh... the fogs fading, wonder why there was fog blocking us from seeing anything though," Goth said shufflingt o where the Inbetween barrier was badly broken.

"It looks ruined..."Palette said as things began to appear.

"That a very Volcanic Temple," Goth said as more details cleared.

"Oh no!" Palette cried, and it was easy to see why.

"That's one freaking big cat..." Goth said wide eyed, it was huge and.. rather fluffy flame shaded fur.. actually it actually flickered with flames. It had onyx black eyes and horns that curved backwards like an ox.

"Searcher!" Shades cried spotting his counterpart trapped by the Guardians tail, which looked fluffy but clearly was super strong. It also looked like Reapers remnant was keeping Ser from total crushing.

What demented person created these things.

OoOoO

A sneeze filled the air.

Solas blinked and smiled at Umbra, pretending they hadn't briefly left there place.

OoOoO

"We have to help him," Palette said unhappy at the cries of pain Ser was making.

"We?" Shades ask turning to his... boyfriend?

"We," Palette said with a glare.

"Right, lets go..." Shades said grabbing Palettes hand..

And went unto the breach...  
OoOoO

Back in Shades multiverse, Geno paused.

Gothy was doing something stupid again.

He was so grounded when he got home next.

OoOoO

"I'll grab the cats attention, can you heal Ser?" he whispered, as they landed behind a broken pillar.

Palette nodded.

As usual, he couldn't take his Error form. But seeing who quickly the guardian had gotten Ser he pulled out his own scythe and went for the cats back.

"Well, what's next?" He asked. "Shades showing up and landing a blow on the Guardian?"

The Cat scream as Shades weapon nicked its rib.  
"Sorry were late!" Shades said, and began to place cat and mouse with the Guardian as the Cat let Searcher go.

Palette grabbed Ser and pulled him from sight to heal.

OoOoO

"Kitty...." Solas cried, watching the cat guardian get hurt.

"Your suppose to not feel bad for the guardian," Umbra sighed.

OoOoO

Dodge...

Dodge...

dooodge...

Stars this Guardian was fast, and had status effects from what he saw as Palette dragged him off.

He should probably call Pally Truth since they were in Sers side of the split multiverse.

He couldn't wait to meet Seeker, as he wondered if under that friendly exterior he was as perverted as Truth.

"Yeek..." as a claw strike almost got him.

Cat and mouse chases were not fun, specially when one was against as actual cat.

Definitely a two skeleton Guardian with its speed.

"Please tell me he's almost healed!" Shades called after another close shave.

"Gothy! Don't let it bite you!"

"Like I'd ever let one do that! Do you know what germ cats have in there mouth!" Shades yelled back, never again would he look into medical books.

He went back to dodging the kitty of doom.

And.. it just breathed fire.. yeah.

Searcher coughed again as the last piece of his ribs went back into it's rightful place. He carefully pushed Truth down, deeper into the hiding spot. "Stay here." He said, before he picked up his Dad's scythe again. "And watch out for the fire."

He forced the excess Magic into his arms this time, watching as a silver sheen spread over his arms. "Shades, you might want to get out of the way!" He yelled as he ran out of the hiding spot, swinging his Dad's scythe, becoming a sliver blurr that was heading for one of the horns of the still fuzzy Guardian.

"Pfff.. Fire, yeah, I noticed that." Shades cackled as he slid away from the guardian in a dodge.

And despite his fuzzy vision, Searcher managed to chop off one of the Guardian's horns, landing right behind the Guardian. Steam was coming from his arms and they were trembling.

The Guardian roared in pain, right before a burst of fire erupted from the stump of it's horn.

"Nice and Clear cut." Shades giggled. "It's horned for battle."

Searcher couldn't help the laughter that came from him. "Seriously Shades? Did you have to do that in the middle of a fight?"

_"Bleep!"_

Searcher looked at the Guardian. "Did it just..."

"My Temple Guardian looked cute and tiny at first, and it went Mu... kill it before it goes cute." Shades muttered. "And yes... it had to be said."

"Yeah, we better do that..." Searcher said. "And at this point, I'm glad that I'm still half blind due to it's Status effect."

He winced as the silver glow disappeared from his arms, before his wings burst out through the slits in the back of his hoodie. He flapped them a few times before he grinned at Shades.

"So ,all out then, hmmm..." Shades said, his semi powerup going active. "And one of these days, I'm going to find out who Fate used to build your Temples and your Guardians."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Palette getting further away from the battle, to his relief.

"Yep... I also found out something interesting..." Searcher grinned. "Hey Dad, do you wanna help me?"

A haunting melody begin to play, and Searcher's shadow began to morph, forming the Remnant, who hovered behind it's Baby Bones. This was their home field and they had a bit of an advantage in their Multiverse...

"Ohhhh..." Shades said at the scene, and amusingly, he was still keeping the Guardian busy with the superior speed of the powerup. He was also using his strings, and his own scythe, to hurt and slow it down.

Searcher grinned and the Remnant grinned too, before Searcher summoned a Gaster Blaster, which began to charge up, even as Searcher took to the air, so that he could attack the Guardian from the air.

He swooped down and he sliced at the Guardian, causing it to yowl in pain.

The Remnant grinned, before it summoned a wave of Bone Attacks to harass the Guardian.

"Burn the burn... how much of a time limit does this have Ser.. also.. we will be having words. Cuz you know, this was still supposed to be a Vacation!" Shades called, enjoying the Guardian's frantic yowls.

"Burn the what?" Searcher asked, even as he swooped and flew around the fire attacks that the Guardian was using. "And well.... Vacation went out of the window when my Pally went missing!"

The Remnant seemed to be slowly fading away, but it summoned one last wave of bone attacks, before it started to return to it's resting place.

"What?! Missing?! And I bet that it was the False Lover too... jerk..." Shades said, striking among the guardians legs. "And it's a old weird joke, just ignore it..."

And at that moment, the Remnant faded.

"Yeah." Searcher frowned, right before he stopped right above the Guardian, as his eyelight flashed blue and four blue bones speared the Guardian through it's paws.

"Pawsome." Shades said, but what might not have been said, was that Truth and Shades had quite a bit of sugary candy that day and thus, the reason for the mass puns.

He summoned more strings, but this time, they were bright white and they cut like razors into the Guardian.

Hmmm.. one of these days he needed to find out if the Guardians had names.   
OoOoO  
"Poor kitty!" Solas cried.

"Its name is Fissure." Umbra sulked. "Not kitty."   
OoOoO  
He could feel the countdown for his own powerup, and he knew that they had to hurry up.

And what made this even more troublesome, was that he could feel a pounding migraine, and it was getting worse. He had a feeling that it was because they kept getting too close to each other, and they'd both been in each other sides too much to be safe.

"Seriously?" Searcher asked, even as he swooped down to slice off the other horn. "Did you have some sort of candy today?"

"When a Palette offers you candy with hopeful eyes, would you say no?" Shades giggled.

"Nope, even if that candy is the reason that I end up on a sugar high that ends up with the kitchen being destroyed."

In the distance Truth giggled... perversely.

Shades ignored this, knowing Pally would be teasing him about it later.

"By the way.. we really need to end this... We both have time limits, and my Magic has been a bit off since I came to your side. I think that we've been too close to each other lately." He replied with concern.

"Yeah..." Searcher winced as his migraine started to affect him, even as the Guardian yowled and it spat fire everywhere. "Back to the Blaster, it's almost ready to fire!"

"The energy in it's the mouth is a bit of a giveaway." Shades replied dryly, moving away and using more strings to keep the Guardian in one spot.

"Yeah!" Searcher quickly grabbed Shades, picking him up and flying towards his Blaster, not noticing the steams of Magic that started to connect them. "Just keep the Guardian in one place!"

He put Shades down once he reached his Blaster and it opened it's mouth, firing it's payload at the Guardian.

"I'm not letting it move," Shades said, gritting his teeth as he forced the strings not to break from the Guardian's onslaught.

He shivered, not noticing bits of Magic starting to build up around Searcher and himself.

The beam hit the Guardian directly and since so much Magic had been charged up in the beam, it carved a hole into the Guardian as it charged towards them.

Searcher cut off the beam of Magic, and the Guardian's fur started to turn black as the fire died and it's body started to crack.

"Please tell me that's it..." Shades sighed.

The Guardian just seemed to crumble into shards of stone, but not before it mewled for the last time.

"It couldn't resist a mewl of resistance." Shades laughed, letting his powerup fade... ooofff.. he was exhausted.

"Yeah..." Searcher sent the Blaster away.

"Hopefully, the Soul is here." Shades moaned.

Searcher slowly moved towards the rubble and he started to search it, only to groan and just kick a piece of the rubble away, before he pulled out another Key Piece.

"More carvings, yay..." Shades said, sitting on a large chuck on rubble, and in the distance, they could see Truth heading their way.

He sat down next to Shades, looking over the carvings on the Key Piece, before he smiled. "Well, it looks like that I am going somewhere with a lot of Stars for my next clue."

"That's.. not much of a clue," Shades protested, remembering how many star themed places there was.

"Yeah, but it does mean looking through some of my favourite AUs." Searcher said, putting the Key Piece in his inventory, with his Dad's scythe before he held the hand that had not been bitten, up for a high five.

Shades grinned, and he put up his own hand up.

Searcher smiled, before he slapped his hand against Shades for a high five.

 _'CRAP!'_ Shades mentally cried as they connected, and he fell into darkness.

 _'Shades!'_ Searcher mentally screamed, before there was a flash of light.

The flash of light faded away to reveal a single Goth sitting there, he had Searcher's height, but he was wearing bigger versions of Shades's clothing.

"..." Truth said, his eyelights were super large because of shock.

There was a few moments before this Goth spoke. "Well, this is interesting... What the hell just happened to us?!"

"Gothy..." Truth squeaked out.

"Fusion of selves Searcher, you and Shades are technically one. And due to many things, are the only beings that are capable enough to do this." A quiet voice said.

Goth got off the rubble, looking at the one who just spoke to them. "Umbra..."

"If you are not careful, this will always be your form, I can reverse this. But you will have to code a block into place, so it cannot happen again by accident, or both of you, as yourselves, may be lost forever..." Umbra replied.

"Searcher?" Truth asked nervously, looking at Umbra.

"Truth, this is Umbra and I don't know if your parents have told you this, he is older than Ink and Error. He is also the only one that can ground Ink." Goth said, putting his hands in his pockets. He sighed. "Well, do what you have to do Umbra, we can't find our Ink's Souls if we are stuck in one body..."

"Don't worry, I can reverse it easily enough. I just have to wait ten more minutes for the magic to stabilize to do it safely.. But as it is, I feel another Skeleton arriving." Umbra replied.

 **"GOTH OBLIVION AFTERDEATH!"** Someone just yelled. **"WHERE ARE YOU?!"**

"Mom's here..." Goth said. "Wait, what?!"

Umbra snorted.

A Skeleton suddenly appeared in front of them, his form was glitching and his left eyesocket was blue. You could clearly see coding within it and the glitch over the left eyesocket was flickering...

"Fatal... it's fine." Umbra said, staring at Fatal with no worries.

 **"Where is my BaBy Healer?"** Fatal hissed.

"Well... it looks like he can't read the codes. That's a pity.. and that's ten minutes." Umbra said, and he flicked the fused Goth's forehead.

There was no flash of light, or changes, but suddenly, there was two Goths. One was sitting on the floor and one was unconscious.

"Try not to be in need of my help any time soon kiddos." Umbra said, turning around and walking away, before he vanished into the shadows, with the faint flicker of wings in his shadow.

Searcher blinked a few times, before he looked at Fatal....

"Mama!" He suddenly yelled, clumsily getting up and running straight towards Fatal.

Fatal pulled his son into his arms when he was close enough, as his glitching died down and his left eyesocket slowly became black again. "Goth!" Geno cried, pulling his eldest's head underneath his chin, not even caring that Goth had a growth spurt. "My baby!" He cried. "It's okay Goth, everything is going to be okay. I've got you now, you're safe."

"Mama..." Searcher cried into his Mom's scarf, not even caring that his Mom's marrow was staining his clothes.

Palette blinked, Gothy would be sad that he missed this reunion.

He pulled out a phone and he started to record it.

Geno kissed the top of his son's head, gently rocking back and forth, humming a song.

Searcher nuzzled his Mom's neck, wrapping his arms around his Mom and just letting go, relaxing into the gentle hold that his Mom had on him. "I missed you..."

"I missed you too Gothy." Geno said. "I missed you so much, let me look at you." He gently tilted his son's head back, running a gentle hand over the slightly more mature features. "Oh Baby Bones, I'm gonna need a stick to beat away your admirers, aren't I?"

Searcher leaned into the gentle touch, smiling.

"Um.. this is nice, but.. Shades needs a better place to rest and we need to figure out how to get us back to our own Multiverse." Truth finally said.

"Oh, my apologies!" Geno said, before he walked over to them, not even caring about the fact that Searcher was clinging to him like a cat. His husband did the same thing.

He used Blue Magic to carefully lift Shades up. "Would you like to carry him... Palette?!" He was shocked, before Searcher nuzzled his Mom.

"Not my Pally." Searcher said. "He's Shades's Pally. Shades is me from another Multiverse."

"Well, okay then Baby Bones." Geno said. "I'll look after your friends, just get some rest. Your horde of siblings will be demanding hugs when we get home."

Searcher just nodded his head, before he fell asleep, in his Mom's care.


	24. Chapter Twenty-One: Hourglass

He hurt.

That was the first thing Goth came aware of.

His bruises had bruises.

His head was a dull ache, his last memory was of trading high fives with Searcher?

Yes... that was it.

He moaned a bit as he woke, as apparently near the end of the fight he had hurt his ankle. He'd have to use healing magic on it, once he was awake enough that is.

"Gothy....?" soft voice asked.

"Pally, where are we?" he asked his head still a foggy mess.

"Searchers mom appeared after an.. incident, and took us home with them," Palette replied.

"Incident?" Goth asked confused.

"Somehow you two fused into one, someone called Umbra appeared and separated you too but you were unconscious,"Palette explained.

"More weirdness," he sighed, blinking as the world finally came into focus.

He sat up with a wince, making a face when he noticed he'd need to change clothing as these ones were toasted.

"Here," Palette said smiling, as he began to heal the smaller skeleton. Goth gave a sigh of relief as the pain faded, even more when his ankle was tended to.

"I should get changed..." he said ruefully "I see your wearing fresh clothing."

"Yup, Seekers clothing he left here fits me fine," Palette said cheerfully.

"Good," Goth said, pulling clothing from his item pocket.

"I'll see you outside Searchers room," Palette said kissing his forehead, and left a blushing Goth behind.

"Not my usual," Goth said looking at the clothing, his mama had grabbed his clothing to wash just before he and Palette had been pulled over.

He pulled on the overlarge grey hoody with cat ears, grey-black faded jeans and a pair of ratty white sneakers. Right... he needed to buy new sneakers, as the Guardian had damaged his usual ones.

As he was about to leave he paused, and stared at some items that were not really well hidden.

"What's with all the cat plushies?" he said curiously, then left the room.

"Searcher is in the master bedroom," Palette said, Goth nodded glad to see the house had the same one as back home.. which he should have expected.

Opening the door and walking in he paused, and broke out laughing.

Searcher was covered in his siblings, but that wasn't the funny part.

Someone had taped his mouth shut with duct tape.

OoOoO

Searcher glared at the laughing Shades, he would have crossed his arms over his chest, but they were full of his Siblings. He looked at his Mom.

"You have two more minutes before you can remove the duck tape Gothy." Geno told him, even as Lotus snickered.

"Sorry Searcher, it was just too funny." Shade said.

"Our Mr.Geno did threaten to do that too through." Truth chirped, Shades nodded as he quickly took some pictures of the puppy pile of kids, with Searcher as the bone.

Searcher's siblings giggled, apart from Sorell, who clapped her hands. "Happy! Happy!"

Shades's eyes went to Sorell, making sure not to react on how much it hurt to see the tiny baby bones. A baby bones who would have been born just before they were taken, his Sorell.. never even got that.

Instead, he continued to smile and take pictures.

"At least I can tell Mama that you're home safe, now I just have to get home to my side of the Multiverse... Did you explain our issue yet?" Shades asked, curiously.

Geno reached over and he removed the Duck Tape, holding a bucket up to Searcher's face.

Searcher spit out a bar of soap into the bucket. "No." He cringed. "And it's not something that the Baby Bones should be hearing..."

"But Aniki!" Shino said. "We want to know what happened to you!"

"Shi, please, don't make me tell you guys, not yet, please..." Searcher pleaded.

Raven sighed, before he picked Shino and Sorell up. "Come on Sis, let's leave the adults to talk."

"But Rave!" Shino cried. "I wanna know what happened to Aniki!"

"Goth just got back Sis, we can find out what happened to him later... Let's make a snack for him, he must be hungry."

Shino frowned, before she smiled. "Okay, Raven onii-chan!" She said, before Raven carried her and Sorell out of the room.

"Active bunch." Shades grinned, he sat on the bed, next to Searcher, while Truth took the bedside chair.

"Yeah..." Searcher said, even as he shuffled away from Shades a bit.

"We can't be too close, not if we want to do the Fusion Dance again..."

"Fusion Dance?" Lotus asked.

"It's an anime joke." Shades grinned, pulling his hood down, with the cat ears flopping a bit on the top of his head. "Anyways, I have already coded some firewalls in, once Truth told me what happened."

Searcher's eyelight was drawn to the cat ears, he quickly realised what was going on and he looked the other way.

Lotus snickered. "And how long have you gone Searcher, without hugging one of your cat plushies? And don't say two years, because you and I know that it has been longer then that..."

"What?!" Geno almost shouted.

"Busted!" Shades snickered, and he was totally amused on these facts. Still amused, he pulled out a Cat puppet that he had made after giving Solas the last one, and he tossed it at Searcher, who caught it after fumbling for a moment.

Searcher quickly pulled the Cat puppet closer to his chest, snuggling it. He glared at Lotus. "You know, I would have told Mom..." He said, before he muttered. "Eventually..."

"Searcher, I helped you pull yourself back together after you got out of the Anti-Void. I know you." Lotus said. "You would have only given your parents the basics and you would have not explained everything that happened to you, because you are scared that they wouldn't love you anymore, not after what Fate forced you to do. Your Dad is Death, and I will have to swear, for fuck's sake, and your Mom spent years watching Genocides over and over again. They would not hate you for what you have done, you was acting as Death on a far large scale then your Dad was. They will not hate you!"

"Gothy, what did Fate do to you?" Geno asked, hugging his son. "Gothy, please, I can't help you if you won't tell me what happened to you."

"Ser... with how my parents reacted, you know that your parents will be the same." Shades said quietly.

Searcher started to cry, before he whispered to his Mom who he had been.

Geno was frozen, before he hugged Goth tighter. "Oh Baby Bones, did you really think that I would hate you for being Error? Because Fate forced you to be him? I am not as stupid as the rest of the Multiverse, I know that a balance must be kept... I looked at Reaper's book of Death once.... Gothy, I never did understand why your name appeared next to Error's when I looked at it, or why the reason for some deaths was overcrowded or overpopulated, not until I talked to Life. She acknowledges the Balance between Life and Death, she hates that Death must destroy her creations, but it is the idea of Death that she hates, not the one who has to carry it out. It is the same for you and Ink, I just don't understand why everyone can't just follow Life's example towards your balance....

Anyone could argue that you and Ink act as another Life and Death, but I find it worrying that no one, apart from your Dad and I, has ever thought about that."

"See Silly, they still love you. Mama and Papa were fine, and so is yours, now.. I'm pretty sure that we should... well, explain why Fate started this, right?" Shades replied softly, gently poking Ser in a spot that he knew was ticklish.

Searcher giggled, even as his Mom climbed into the bed, leaning Searcher rest his head on his shoulder.

"Wait..." Geno suddenly said. "If you are Error, does that mean that you know about your scarred eyesocket now?"

Searcher nodded his head. "I just wish that my ability to peek at the Multiverse codes, allowed me to restore his eyelight, instead of unlocking the memory." Shades said, unhappily.

"Gothy... even with healing magic, you know that's impossible." Truth said finally.   
"I know... even Umbra can't restore eyelights, as far as I know..." Shades grumped.

"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" Lotus asked, frowning.

Searcher frowned. "I was born with two eyelights, but I lost my right one in a attack when I was a year old."

"Wait, Umbra?" Geno spoke up. "I think that I remember him, he was the one to heal Gothy's eyesocket."

"Urrrrghhh... I'm pretty sure that Umbra is the same Umbra in both timelines. I can feel Fate's touch on him, even more heavily then the one on Error. I worried about where and when, she grabbed him." Shades growled. "He's a bit of a troll too."

Umbra seemed to be delighted whenever he teased him, but Ser hadn't really mentioned Umbra to him, so Umbra might not be teasing him.

"Umbra is that really nice guy who grounds Ink when he creates too much." Searcher smiled. "I have seen him being a bit of a troll but it is never towards me... And it is weird, but sometimes, I swear that he has a sad look in his eyelights when he sees me... It's the child that hangs out with Umbra that I am afraid off. That kid can even make _Ink_ , of all skeletons, feel guilty about something..."

"The child's named is Solas, he popped up in my Anti-Void, in the private spot that only I should be able to get to. I gave him a cat puppet, he seems to like cats, like you." Shades said, and Solas was adorable.

Searcher frowned. "His name is Solas and he is a guy?" He asked. "I thought that it was Hikari and he was a girl, but then again, it was a Yandere!Sans that was calling him that, and we all know how much they can get wrong when it comes to their Sempai's."

"My version does that too, and yeah it's Solas. The kiddo introduced himself and then, he vanished." Shades replied, he then noticed that Geno was getting a bit confused, and he realized that they really needed to explain the split Multiverse.

"Yeah..." Searcher frowned. "But this whole mess began long before our Multiverses were created..."

"Stupid False Lover." Shades scowled, flopping back onto the bed.. He was starting to get rather thirsty.

"False Lover?" Geno asked. "Gothy, what's going on?"

"It began a long time ago Mom." Searcher said. "And it's a long story..."

Geno frowned. "It's Truth, right?" He asked, looking at Shades's Palette. "Can you get us some drinks? You know where they are right? I have a feeling that we are going to need them..."

"I'll go with him." Lotus got up. "I already know the story. Searcher filled me in before he brought me here, and I can check on the swarm as well."

"Do you mind if I get a glass of water while you start, I'm parched... and knowing Truth, he'll dig till he finds the tea." Shades asked hopefully, he really needed something to drink as soon as possible.

"Sure, you know where the Bathroom is." Geno said.

"Shades... Wait!" Searcher suddenly said. Something felt off in his Soul... He reached over to Shades and he pulled him into a hug, before he placed something in Shades's hands.

It was a small bit of Jade on a chain. Geno looked at it. "Goth, isn't that the good luck charm that I made for you from the first amulet that Life made for me, so that I could leave the Save Screen?"

Searcher nodded his head. "I kept it with me, all this time, but I have a feeling that Shades will need it more then I do..."

"You're the best, you worry wart." Shades beamed, returning the hug, before he slipped the piece of jade around his neck.

"I'll be back in a second." He said slipping off of the bed.

"May the luck be with you!" He said, nerdily, as he left the room, smiling.

He heard Searcher laugh as he walked down the hallway.

"Um..." he said moments later, the hallway shouldn't be this long.

"Wh..." he began.

The world vanished around him.

OoOoO

Fate sighed as they grabbed Shades.

Finally for the final round.

OoOoO

Shades gagged, releasing bile and magic onto muddy ground.

Moaning he crawled over to a tree where its branches would shade him from the overly bright sun, he'd just come too and his head felt as if Ink had used it as a bouncy ball.

His thoughts were foggy and jumbled.

'Where am I?" he thought confused, he was pretty sure that the last place he'd been had been talking to Ser and Sers version of Geno...

And leaving to get some water.

"What..." Shades said pausing in what he was doing, he'd been reaching up to rub his skull.

A much to large hand was there, wearing a thick and heavy brown glove.. the type that seemed to last forever even without magic... and the glove radiated magic.

"Wha..." he said, as the fact the hand was his hand and his suddenly different voice registered on him.

Cue Epic freak out.

OoOoO

Meanwhile, in the future Searcher was getting rather worried as Shades has been going to grab a glass of water and now he couldn't feel him anywhere.

Fate... both Fates sighed in relief.

Things were coming full circle.

OoOoO

"Okay.. don't freak out, your just looking like someone else. Your use to other bodies, like Error..." Shades said trying not to panic, he'd managed to find a small pond nearby to look at himself.

The face was still a Sans face, and he looked Eighteen and much taller then before with pearly white bones they seemed to glow. He guessed taller then Blue but still smaller then Ink, so still on the short side... also amusingly still smaller then Searcher.

He hoped Searcher was okay...  
He never did get that glass of water...

Stars Darn it.

He was wearing a hooded black jacket, or if technical a trench coat. What material it was made out of he didn't know, but it was also deeply saturated with magic. It was almost a relief to see a scarf, even if not his usual but a heavy brown one matching his gloves. Underneath is he found Searchers good luck form, out of sight though. Shifting he checked his feet, spotting thick brown boots.

All Saturated by magic.

"My eyes.." he said, they reminded him on his power up as his eye lights were gold but the red Determination was specks in them.. actually kind of pretty.

"Okay... I need to check myself," Shades said, it was awkward to check one-self outside of battle but it could be done.

"Fate... why..." he cried.

**Umbra**

All his stats and level had an infinity symbol.

There was more, but the information seemed to be locked from him.

He clutched his head, he knew that name should be familiar...

Fate must have blocked the information and memories.

 _ **Welcome to the end of the beginning Umbra**_ Fate whispered.

"Oh... oh no," Shades no Umbra said trying to stay calm.

He wasn't lost, he was very lost.

And if he guessed right, before Error had even existed.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Two: Light and Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art on wattpad <3

The multiverse was still refreshingly new.

He'd yet to come across a negative AU.

Umbra knew why, this was before the False Lover and the shattering of one into two.

He knew the event was soon, and that he had to hurry.

Yet... he couldn't stop it.

It was a set event.

If he stopped it, it would cause a paradox causing neither Ser or himself from existing as they were which would cause destructive ripples in this multiverse.

Lets not have that.

He was in an AU he didn't recognize when he felt Ink, he took a deep breath when he felt the edge of another magic.

Fear was there.

"I'm sure its just your mother worrying you," a male voice said.

"Mother wishes for us to depart from one another, she says your not what you seem. That they promise my soulmate will come into being soon," another voice said softly.

"Hey, just because she's Fate doesn't make her choices yours," the first voice said.

He had to get closer, he had to see what face Fear wore.

"Crap.." he swore.

It was happening, that split. Suddenly he was that inbetween place, but it was around his body like a second skin.

He ran towards the voices, the multiverse coding going insane.

"Skully... I..." Ink said,

"Shuuuu..." Skull Sans or rather Fear said gently, Fear was using a mafia Sans face of all things!

"Stay with me," Skull begged.

"I..." Ink began as a choice was made.

The Multiverse shivered.

And suddenly there were two in front of him, both wavering and unstable from the split.

The coding re-configuring and rewriting made him feel ill.

" _I love you Skully," Ink said, "your everything I want"  
"I'm glad," Skull/Fear said kissing him._

" _..." Ink said, eyelights mere pricks of white.  
"It made this rather easy," Fear laughed as Ink collapsed, like a puppet without strings._

" **I can't, I'm sorry Skully..." Ink said sadly, tears dripping down his face as he backed away from Skull/Fear. "But I have to obey my Mother..."**

" **Inky... no! Stay with me, please!" Skull begged.**

" **Mother loves me... they promised me that someone will be born just for me, I love you... but a soulmate is what I want." Ink whispered. "But, we can still be friends, if that would make you happy..."**

**And with that, Ink portalled away.**

**Skull/Fear screamed with Rage.**

Suddenly Umbra could move, not in Ser's timeline as Inks soul was still there but in his own.

Fear had ripped Inks soul apart into three parts, a horrible thing to see.

Well...

This explained to many things.

Like why neither Searcher or himself could find any hints to Ink's essence.

"Who are you!" Fear snarled, as Umbra was just suddenly there in front of him.

Umbra only smiled, as Shadows blasted Fear far away even right through trees.

Painfully.

But He had what he needed, in his hands was Inks essense.

He fled.

OoOoO

Umbra sighed in relief as the soul essense surrounded itself around the combined soul pieces, it grew brighter and he could feel the phantom sounds of Ink's battle music.

"Right... so that's done, now to get home," Umbra said, his task was finally done. He just had to help Searcher get his Inkys soul back, then they could give it to Ink and be free.

"Fate?" he called.

No answer...

"Fate?" he said worried.

_Time...._

_....Time Loop..._

_Falling!_

_A shard of soul hidden in his own for the final part of the journey._

_Temples..._

_....Building...._

_The Void._

_LIGHT!_

_Solas_

_SOLAS!_

Umbra passed out with a nosebleed, as his mind was assaulted by images and information.

Even Unconscious it continued.

He was going home the long way.

And he was going to be very very busy.

Deep in his soul, Searchers Soul shard drew comfort from there counterpart knowing they were safe.

For now the soul piece slept.

OoOoO

"Is there too many braziers?" Umbra asked himself looking around, there was quite a few of them patterned in a way to not allow shadows to form.

He had not expected this to be his first duty.

Searcher was going to murder him, when he found out he set up the temples by Both Fates orders.

The temple was very nice looking, temperature not too cold or hot. Patterned white stone walls with gold engraved into them with soothing patterns, the floor was actually super soft white sand that made one just want to nap on them.

In the centre of the room was a beautiful carved throne with two white-gold braziers on each side, these were the only braziers that had bright white flames instead.

"So, is it to your liking?" he asked.

The soul shard hummed.

"This will be your Temple Solas, your home... I want you to be happy," Umbra replied gently.

"..."

"I don't need my own temple Solas, my place is the void," Umbra replied, the shard radiated sadness.

"Don't worry, I'll be visiting and I can let you visit my place," Umbra said, the shard cheered up.

"Now that its ready, Fates given all the data needed to create your body my other self," Umbra whispered.  
"...."

"There's nothing to be afraid of Solas, you can't stay in my soul," Umbra laughed walking towards the throne.

Solas seemed to be worried, Umbra could feel his desire to stay within his Soul, where it was safe.

Gently he kneeled in front of the throne, he closed his eyes and concentrated. Unlike the other Guardians who he still had to build.. stars darn it, Solas was alive in ways they were not so his 'birth' was different.

Large wings that looked like they were made of Shadows appeared on his back, and shadows seemed to shift around his form.

Codes of Gold and Shadow danced on his body as he immersed himself in the multiverse codes.

He he began to sing, sing the codes into reality as Fate instructed.

Each note or rather code the braziers shifted colors briefly.

Slowly what seemed to be a white flame appeared on the throne.

Time had no meaning as he sang the codes into reality, fate guiding the codes.

He opened his eyes still singing, his eyelights and eyesockets glowing gold.

The multiverse seemed to shake, as the final syllable left his mouth.

He blinked exhausted as Fate released there grip on him, swaying a bit.

The flame swirled on the throne, light swirling around them like a nimbus.

Then it grew, a main body, arms, legs hands and feet and a small head.  
Of course Solas would still be a child and tiny that seemed to be made out of light.

He was freaking adorable.

With one last note he summoned Solas clothing, yup.. still adorable.

"..." Solas said.

"Yup, that's you," Umbra said exhausted, and gently summoned Solas from his own soul.

"Happy Birthday Solas," Umbra said as he gently placed Solas into there new body.

Slowly Solas opened his eyes, Umbra smiled.

And passed out, but hey you try to build a body from nothing you'd pass out to.

OoOoO

Solas slipped off of the throne, waddling over to the collapsed figure. "Big brother?" He asked, poking the skeleton. "Big brother, wake up." His hood slipped off of his head as it seemed to become solid, revealing that his face was that of a child, with similar golden patterns on his face, like the walls around them.

His single eyelight was a pure gold orb with white speckled in it but his right eyesocket had a grey tinge outlining it. The eyesocket itself didn't have an eyelight in it.

His pure white cloak dragged on the ground behind him, while the hood itself seemed to defy gravity and it remained upright. His boots were soft and they covered his feet, while his hands were empty.

"Big Brother! Wake up! Solas doesn't want to be alone!"

Umbra moaned and forced himself awake.  
"Sorry my little brother, I just exhausted myself. I'm so happy to meet you in person not just soul to soul," Umbra said happily, slowly getting up a bit amused when he realized Solas had been poking him with his finger.

Solas giggled. "Yay! Solas is happy to meet Big Brother as well!" He clapped his hands, well, he tried to, but the cloak got in the way.

"Huh.. was sure I designed you cloak less loose," Umbra said voice a bit rough from singing Solas code in. Gently he picked up Solas into a hug, the smaller skeleton was the perfect hug size. He'd thought of making Solas older, but the soul shard had come from child Goth and was too innocent and wouldn't understand an older self.

Solas giggled, hugging Umbra. "You look familiar Big Brother! Has Solas met you before?"

"Not until Fate gave you to me Solas, but time is a funny things. But are you ready?" he asked the tiny guardian.

"Yep!" Solas smiled at Umbra, before he started to rub the area around his right eyesocket. "Why is Solas doing this Big Brother?"

"Once your ready I'll tell you Solas, now... lets go explore the multiverse," Umbra replied softly, knowing Solas was not ready to know why he had phantom pain there. Solas was 'born' knowing his duty as Guardian, he just hoped Solas would not be lost when the cycle ended.  
Losing Solas might break him.  
After all, Solas has resting in his own soul for a hundred years while he prepared the temple and learning how to code sing.

"Okay Big Brother!" Solas pulled the hood of his cloak over his face as his control over it was lost, causing it to be a swirling mess, it was impossible to tell which part of it was his face and which part of it was his eyelight. "Let's go!"

Umbra grinned getting to his feet, Solas still in his arms.  
"First thing first, I'll show you my resting place in the void," Umbra said happily.  
"Solas still think you should have your own Temple, big brother is Fates Multiverse Watcher Guardian," Solas said, with a laugh Umbra and Solas vanished.  
OoOoO

Solas screamed as the Multiverse shook.

Solas was scared and he wanted his big brother.

But Umbra had suddenly left him at the temple, his eyelights were almost fully red and the gold had almost disappeared from them.

The markings on Solas's face were glowing.

Then it ended, Solas shivered on his throne, terrified.

"Big brother!" He cried in relief as a familiar shadowy form appeared, and it solidified into Umbra.

"Sorry Solas, Fate called me." Umbra said softly, he gently walked over and he picked up the crying Solas.

"Solas was scared." Solas whispered.

"I know, The Fates reset both of the Multiverses. Both of the Inks are now equal and soulless." Umbra said, Solas whimpered and he cuddled closer to the older looking being.

"Not Ready." Solas whispered.

"I'm sorry," Umbra whispered, and he gently passed Solas what he was carrying.

The Guardian of the Light Temple was not happy to receive the 'item' that he had to hide, but no matter what it was, it his duty.

OoOoO

"The Inky's are silly," Solas said, he was hiding in Umbras jacket as they watched an Ink create. Umbra seemed to like to hide in the Shadowy large pocket he created there.

"Its due to there soulless state," Umbra explained.  
"Should I give the soul back big brother?" Solas asked worriedly.

"No... only one being can retrieve that soul and it cannot be given till then," Umbra replied, as he relaxed out of sight.

"I understand," Solas huffed.

"Why do you stay in there all the time?" Umbra asked, Solas pretty much lived in his jacket hugging him when outside his temple.

"Safe... feel like home, miss being in your soul," Solas said.

"I know little one, I'm sorry you couldn't stay," Umbra whispered sadly, he took one last look at the Ink and left.

OoOoO

If one could enter the temple of light, they would come across a scene quite adorable.

On a throne slept a being that seemed to be made of shadows, with a smaller figure of light sleeping cushioned against there chest.

As usual, Solas was taking a nap and had given the taller skeleton the puppy dog eyes attack to stay with him. How a skeleton did the eyes, one would have to scratch there head in confusion.

Like Solas Umbra could allow his powers to release, making him look like he was made of shadows like Solas of Light.

Solas made a mewing sound as he woke, yawning and stretching in the safe haven on top of Umbra.

Looking up he saw that Umbra was still asleep, humming he began to play with Umbras gloved hands.

"Ops.." he said, realizing that in his play he'd pulled one off.

"..." he said in awe, the hand was more solid right now then the rest of Umbra but he knew what he saw.

"We match!" he said happily, for on Umbras hands were golden marking that matched his own but going the opposite directions. Quickly he pulled off the other glove and he felt all happy inside, Umbra really was his other half.

"Solas?" a sleepy voice asked.

"Solas happy, Solas will never be alone," Solas said happily, for Umbra was his and his alone.

"All I want is for you to be happy," Umbra hummed "Come my little light, we can sleep some more."

Solas happily cuddled as close as he could, as he fell asleep.

OoOoO

Solas woke up when he heard Umbra sneeze. "Big Brother? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Solas." Umbra said, sliently cursing his Ink in his head. "It's just a cold."

"But you're sick! Solas yelled. "Big Brother needs to rest so that he can get better!"

"I'm fine Solas!" Umbra told him.

"No, you're not." Umbra was stunned at the more grown up voice coming from Solas.

"Solas?" He looked at Solas, but all that he could see was Searcher from that time in the library. The image soon faded to show Solas, with his hood down and a stern expression on his usually childish face.

"You're sick Umbra, and we can't be sick, so let me take care of you Big Brother!"

"Okay..." Solas smiled, becoming more child like again.

"Yay! Solas will take good care of Big Brother!"

OoOoO

Solas was happy! Big Brother was happy too! Big Brother was better now! But why did he feel icky?

He coughed. "Big Brother?"

"Yes Solas." They were visiting Candytale and Umbra was in the middle of eating a chocolate bar.

"Solas feels icky." The smaller skeleton said before he collapsed.

"SOLAS!" Umbra yelled as he dropped the chocolate bar, scooping up the smaller skeleton. He froze when he saw the small amount of Dust coming from Solas's right hand.

"No..." He hadn't even considered that it would be dangerous for Solas to stay out of his Temple for too long. "Nonononono..."

He quickly made a portal back to the temple and he ran through it, placing Solas on his throne.

The Dust on his right hand was slowly reabsorbed back into his body and Umbra breathed a sigh of relief. He carefully climbed onto the throne, wrapping himself around Solas.

"Big Brother..." Solas muttered in his sleep and Umbra just smiled.

"Get some rest Solas." He said, kissing the smaller skeleton on the head. "And the next time that we leave this Temple together, I'll be more careful with you, I promise."

"Okay... Solas loves his Big Brother..."

"I love you too Solas."

OoOoO

Umbra woke up with something slamming into him.

Which should have been impossible as he was super deep in the void napping.

Anything he didn't being himself should have been ripped apart and spread across the void.

Opening his eyes he yawned, he'd barely been napping not even fifty years. A very short time as Solas was still deep asleep, and Fate didn't need him active other then keeping a mental eye on the two multiverses.

And here was some idiot waking him up in his limited free time, when he could finally freaking mentally rest.

Of course...

"Your definitely not suppose to be here," Umbra said, taking in the comatose goopey being floating in the void.

Only the fact that Dream, was still sealed in stone and there twin bond keeping him from being torn apart. But it must be painful to be here, as the void wanted to devour all those foolish to end here.

"Which Nightmare are you?" He asked, gathering the corrupted being.

He searched the other's code, and saw it was his own Nightmare.

Nightmare had told him in the past, while still Error that the darker apples had driven his body and mind feral for at least a hundred years after he ate them.

He had never admitted how he'd snapped out of it.

"Lets get you to safety," Umbra said, and moments later they were gone from the void.

\----

Nightmare hurt.

He was pretty sure he should be dead though.

So why was he hurting.

He might have been out of his mind, but he was pretty sure he'd been accidentally knocked into the void.

This must be a Dream.

After all he was probably still out of control in reality.

"You are not asleep Nightmare Avalon," a voice said.

Of Course he was asleep, he'd made his choices and waited Death to find him to set the scales right. He rather doubted Dream would ever wake.

"Death cannot claim you child, your twin will wake in the future," the voice said softly.

Was the other reading his mind?

"No, your talking out loud," the voice said dryly.

"Oh..." Nightmare rasped out, he opened blurry eyes to see a darkly garbed figure and maybe wings.

"Rest... you have a duty ahead of you child," the other said, Nightmare fell back into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke again he was alone.

It was four hundred years later when Dream woke, that he learned his savour was called Umbra.

OoOoO

Umbra sighed as he and Solas entered the Anti-void, and with Solas being the curious being that he was, he wanted to see it. After all, Solas had already visited the void safely with Umbra.

"Solas sees a lot of white." Solas said, and because of the fact that he was white and he was made out of light, he blended in with his surroundings, unlike his darker shaded counterpart.

"The only color is up there." Umbra said, pointing up, to where millions of blue strings hung, and fragile souls hung in their eternal prisons.

"Ohhhh! Pretty! Solas wants one!"

"Sorry Solas, these souls are under the Error's protection." Umbra replied, amused.

"Awww..."

"No awwing me over this Solas, neither of us have time to look after even more souls. And we'd wake Error up if we tried to take them." Umbra said, for he had noticed Error sleeping not far away... it was one of the few times that the being slept.

'Searcher...' He thought sadly.

"Is he okay Big Brother?"

"He's sleeping Little Light, but never as much as his soul needs due to the duty that Fate gave him." Umbra replied, knowing how restless a sleeper he'd been as Error and Ser had been as well. Sleeping was a miracle and a guilty pleasure with how busy Ink had kept them.

"Ohh... Can we make him feel better?"

"How so?" Umbra asked curiously, he felt.. that there was something he should remember, something that Ser had mentioned once...

Freaking fate sealing his memories to prevent a paradox.

"Solas doesn't know, but Solas feels alive. I feel so alive here!" Solas was smiling. "Can we sleep with him? He feels so lonely Big Brother."

A gentle smile came to Umbra's face. "Let me get you comfy then love." He said, pulling off his jacket, and placing it on top of Error. Revealing, that at the moment, he was wearing a very dark purple sweatshirt and black jeans under it. His normal clothing was being washed, along with Solas's spare clothing.

The last AU had been fun, Solas had enjoyed jumping into the mud a bit too much.

"Yay!" Solas smiled. "Don't worry other me, I will make you feel better..." He frowned. "Why did I say that?" He asked himself, but he soon forgot about it. He giggled, carefully cradling on top of the jacket and curling up into a ball on Error's lap before he fell asleep.

"I'm sorry Searcher, I'm sorry Solas." Umbra whispered as he sat down, in a position that Error wouldn't see him in, if he woke up.

And then he watched, for while he seemed free, he was less free than anyone as long as Fate needed him...

OoOoO

Solas giggled as he left the Temple, Big Brother was sleeping and Solas wanted to get him a present.

He found himself walking through a shopping centre, cooing at some of the items on display, his hood was down and he looked so adorable.

He caught the attention of a certain Sans as he walked by him. Yandere had been rejected by his Sempai, again, but when the vision of cuteness waddled pass him, he just fell in love. He had a new Sempai now!

She was so cute in her oversized cloak with her golden facial markings. A little light....

Hikari. Yes, that must be the name of his new little sister, his new Sempai.

He followed 'Hikari' through the mall.

\-----

Solas cooed at the pendant that he had found, it was perfect! Big Brother would love it! He waddled into the shop, holding his Gold close to his chest.

"Excuse me! I want to buy the Pendant over there!" He said. "It's for my Big Brother!"

The shop seeker cooed at Solas before she got the pendant out for him, wrapping it up and handing it over to him as Solas handed her the Gold for the pendant.

Yandere was angry. His new Little Sister already had a Big Brother, but that didn't matter, he could get rid of him and become Sempai's new Big Brother.

Solas left the store, giggling, only to run into Yandere. He whimpered as he looked at them. This Sans felt bad, he wanted his Big Brother.

He slowly backed away from them before he ran into the crowd, using his short height to get through the crowd and to put distance between him and the Sans.

He soon found himself back in his Temple, he waddled over to Umbra, who was awake now.

"Solas?"

"Bad Sans! There was a bad feeling Sans Big Brother! Solas only wanted to get you a present!" Solas started to cry.

"I'm not mad Solas." Umbra was quick to hug him. "Shhh... It's okay, I'll protect you from the bad feeling Sans."

\----

Yandere wasn't going to give up, he was going to find his new Sempai, his new Little Sister, no matter what.

"Hikari, Hikari~ Where are you?"

OoOoO

"Ah..." Ink said spotting the darkly garbed Sans, this was Shades Ink and Ink was edging away from the one being he never forgot.  
"Hello Inky," Umbra said.  
"Ink who is this?" Dream asked frowning, Ink had never mentioned this Sans.

"This... is Umbra," Ink said with a rather plastic like smile.

"Hello Umbra, I'm Dream," Dream said introducing himself.

"..." Umbra said just staring.

"Oh no..." Ink said.

"Ink?" Dream asked concerned.

"I did it again didn't I..." Ink shivered.

Umbra tapped his foot.

"He'll be back in a few weeks," Umbra told Dream as he led Ink off, Umbra was also the only one that could Ground Ink for over creating and get away with it.

Meanwhile, Error celebrated as he caught up on destroying and took a vacation.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Two: Light and Shadows Part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art on wattpad <3

Searcher's Ink stared at the little skeleton.

The little Skeleton stared back at Ink.

"Ink, who is this?" Dream asked.

Ink winced, seeing the small speckle of tears in the smaller Skeleton's eyes before he disappeared. That always happened when a really dark AU appeared.

"Ink?" Dream asked. "Who is it?"

"I don't know." Ink eventually said. "I don't even know it's name or gender, but I do know one thing about that skeleton..."

"What is it?"

"They are older then me and Error..."

OoOoO

"Well Hello there!" a voice said purred, Umbra turned and blinked.

"..." he said as a Copy Lust Sans leaned into his personal space.

"Aren't you hot stuff," Lust smirked.  
Noped.

Lust swore as another cutie escaped.  
OoOoO

Solas hummed as Umbra walked with him, they were going to a park. He pointed out to Umbra a certain Skeleton.

"Look Big Brother! It's an Inky!"

Umbra chuckled. "Well done Solas." He recognised the Ink, it was Shades's Ink.

"Umbra...." Ink was nervous. He had just been ungrounded for a week. There was no way that he was in trouble again...

"Relax Ink, you're not in trouble..." Umbra told him. "We're just here to relax."

"We?"

"Hi!" Solas waved at Ink, before he tugged on Umbra's hand. "Big Brother, I'm gonna play on the swings."

"Okay Little Light, have fun." Umbra pressed a gentle kiss to Solas's head before the small skeleton ran off to play.

"Who is that?" Ink asked, he had heard tales of Umbra being accompanied by someone but he never thought that they would be true.

"He's from another Multiverse Ink, one where he plays an important role in an event that could save or destroy it. I bring him here sometimes to help him escape from that Destiny." That was all that he could tell Ink.

"Ahhh..." Ink watched as Umbra sat on the nearest bench, watching over the small skeleton.

\---

Solas giggled as he played on the swings, he was having so much fun, when he was joined by someone. He looked over to see who it was and he froze. This was not the one from his Multiverse, but he knew who this was, this was the Bad Feeling Sans.

"BIG BROTHER!" He yelled, jumping off of the swing as the Yandere tried to grab him, before he started to run over to Umbra. "

SOLAS!" Umbra yelled, as he shot up, running towards Solas and scooping him up, turning around so that he was a barrier between Solas and the Yandere.

He glared at the Yandere even as the knife slid into his chest. He was bleeding, but that didn't stop him from using a shadow to crush the Yandere's wrist.

 **"DON'T TOUCH MY LITTLE BROTHER!"** He growled, even as Ink used some of his paint to chain up the Yandere.

Solas was crying, hiccuping as he sobbed into Umbra's shoulder. He just wanted the Bad Feeling Sans to go away. Umbra gently rubbed Solas's back.

"Shh... Solas, I'm fine, I'm okay. You know that I can't die, not from something like this."

"But you're hurt and it's my fault.... I wanna go home..."

Umbra sighed, before he looked at Ink. "Can you deal with him Ink, I need to take the Little Light home..."

"Yeah..." Ink felt so guilty and scared at the same time. Umbra only wanted to do something nice for the younger Skeleton and now, it was ruined....

And Umbra, he had never seen him that mad before...

Umbra nodded to Ink before they left, reappearing in Solas's Temple, where it was safe.

He placed the sobbing Solas on his throne, wrapping him up in the jacket that had been left on it, before he changed out of his blood soaked sweater, healing himself and pulling on a clean one.

He picked up Solas once he was done, cradling the smaller skeleton.

Solas hugged Umbra, crying. "Stay with me, please!"

Umbra nuzzled the top of Solas's head, curling up on the throne with the smaller skeleton, rubbing his back until he fell asleep.

"I miss you Ser." He muttered, seeing Ser as Solas, an innocent bean was cute, but he missed the Ser that he had meet as Shades, the Ser that had begun to heal from the damage that Fate and being Error had done to him, the one that he had left behind....

But he did not see Solas as a replacement for Searcher. Solas had his own personality, his own interests and hobbies and his own dislikes as well....

But he hated how Ser's Fate had damaged Ser even more by tearing a piece of his Soul from him and spitting his personality into two when she took him to be Error.

He had to be strong, Solas needed him.

The smaller skeleton curled up closer to Umbra. He had to focus on the here and now, and not the past and the future....

He sighed and he kissed Solas on the head. "Everything is going to be okay Solas, I promise..."

OoOoO

Solas giggled as he snuck back into his Temple. Big Brother had been very busy recently, so Solas had been left on his own. He had cried about it for a while, but then, he had an idea.

He never liked the fact that his Temple sounded so empty, that the only echo that he could hear was his own voice, so he decided to fill that silence with music.

He sat down on his throne, pulling out the package that he had gone to pick up. He unwrapped it to reveal a pure white ocarina with golden spirals on it.

He giggled as he brought the ocarina to his mouth and he started to play it, kicking his legs back and forth as the music started to echo around his Temple, erasing the silence.

Big Brother was going to be so surprised when he visited Solas again!

OoOoO

Blue looked down at the soul in his hands, Error had returned him to the empty place his AU had once been with Chara's soul.

He could feel the power of the reset in his hands, but he had no idea how to get the soul to activate. Stretch was taking a nap nearby, taking a dearly needed nap exhausted from searching for his brother.

"Um.. can you reset Chara?" he asked the soul feeling a bit stupid.

Of course nothing happened.

"Do you need help?" a soft voice asked, Blue yelped and fell over... Stretch slept through the sound.

"Who are you!" Blue demanded, he was already stressed from not being able to get the reset done.

"You may call me Umbra, but the soul sleeps so it cannot hear you," the being replied.

"But I need it to reset," Blue cried, and he felt tears slip down his face.

"Little one, I can help you," Umbra said, Blue felt he should protest being called little one but Umbra.. Umbra felt old.. older then even Error had.

"How?" he asked.

Umbra reached forward and tapped the soul, the tip of his gloved fingers glowing with shadowy magic.

The world exploded in Light.

**RESET**

Blue blinked and gave a chocked laugh, as he found himself in familiar setting.

He was home, his home was back.

Yet Umbra was gone.

OoOoO

Something was happening.

Umbra woke with a gasp, his magic prickling his bones.

Slowly golden eyes flecked with red opened, the endless emptiness of the anti-void met him.

Right, he'd fallen asleep outside his place... not that anything here could effect him.

Rubbing his face he searched the codes, huh.. he'd been asleep for sixty years and Solas was still asleep at the moment.

What had woken him up?

"Wait... I was born, that means Ser was born also!" Umbra said a bit excited.

Which explained why his magic was a bit wired, technically he was in three places at once.

As his true Self Goth, also as Error on the second loop and himself who was in the final loop of time.

He tilted his head confused, what was causing him to wake... Ser and himself were only toddlers.

"Crap...." Umbra swore as he finally woke up the rest of the way, finally noticing the pain and fear fear _FEAR_ coming from baby Searcher.

Seconds later he was gone from the Void.

OoOoO

Geno/Fatal POV..

_Why?_

He held Goth closer to himself, before he fired more bone attacks at the Gods that were slowly surrounding them. He could feel Reaper's unconscious body leaning against him.

He felt sick whenever he looked at his husband. Reaper had been the first one to fall, the Gods had ganged up on him while he was trying to protect them. Reaper's bones had been broken and shattered, his left wing had nearly been severed and his left leg was on the other side of the park. His marrow was staining his cloak and Geno's jacket beyond repair..

Goth was crying, his baby was so scared, holding onto his scarf with everything that he had, and both of his eyelights were small pinpricks in a sea of darkness.

_Why were they attacking them?_

He could fell his Magic slowly running out, he was running on empty.

He screamed when one of them got close enough to rip Goth out of his arms. "No!" He yelled, fighting back against the many hands that were holding him down.

The God holding Goth grinned, right before they brutally attacked his son.

Goth screamed as the right side of his face exploded in pain.

No... They were going to kill his baby...

**BaBy.... BaBy wAs HuRT....**

**HuSBAnd WaS hUrT....**

**ThEY SHoLD die.**

**DiE.... dIe...DIe...DiE.... dIe...DIe...DiE.... dIe...DIe...DiE.... dIe...DIe...DiE.... dIe...DIe...**

**DIE!**

He screamed, right before his vision was covered in coding...

And then, more screams echoed from the park, those of the Gods...

A Fatal Error had just been born.

Fatal tore off the arms of the Gods holding him down, before he rushed forwards, snatching Goth away from the God that was holding him, and kicking that God in the stomach, he held his baby close to him.

 **"BaBy..."** Fatal gently nuzzled the small skeleton, and he didn't even care that he was getting Goth's marrow all over him. His baby was going to be okay.

He looked at the other Gods and he sneered. They had to die. They had hurt his Baby and his Soulmate.

He took a step forwards, before he started to use bone attacks to bring the pain to these disgusting Gods.

Goth cried louder, he was so scared. What was wrong with Protector-Sire-Father? Why was Warm-Food-Mother mad?

Error looked up from the Doll that he was making. Fate was screaming at him.

_"Stop him! Stop the other glitch! I don't need another Destroyer!"_

He put the Doll down and he went to do his duty.

The scene that Error arrived at, was pure destruction, there was nothing left of the park, and pieces of Gods had been scattered everywhere.

And in the middle of it all, had to be the potential Destroyer, his form was glitching and even from here, Error could see the coding in his drooping Blue and Red eyes.

The Destroyer was holding something close to his chest, a Baby Bones, and it was hurt.

There was another Male Skeleton close to the first Skeleton, his Husband? And the Father of the Baby Bones?

"Well.. this is a mess," a quiet voice said from behind Error.

He turned around. **_"Umbra?"_** He asked.

"I was not expecting Fatal to make an appearance, but the balance between the two must be kept," Umbra replied, the ever shadowy being peering at the carnage.

 ** _"I'll calm Fatal down."_** Error said. **_"But I may need help, there's a Baby Bones here and well, Fatal will try to kill us if we touch the baby."_**

"The child needs healing, and among us I am the only one that can heal. I will start with Reaper why you try with Fatal," Umbra said, started slowly towards the downed death god.

 **"Okay.."** Error walked slowly towards Fatal. **"Please, calm down. They won't hurt you anyone. You're safe..."**

Fatal growled at Error, the coding in his blue eye seemed to be glitching a bit.

Umbra leaned down by Reaper and started humming, with this amount of damage he'd have to sing Reapers codes back instead of normal healing magic.  
"..." He sang to quietly for anyone to hear, thankfully healing was aloooot easier then building temples and guardians were. The parts of Reaper broken off vanished, not dusted or shatered just vanished. He coudl hear Error trying to calm Fatal down, he felt relief as codes invisible to other monsters circled reaper as it restored his body.  
Sadly he knew it would not restore damage the balance forced, he was not looking forward to the fact he knew already he would be unable to fully heal the tiny baby bones.

Ser... why was this a set event.  
Eyelights were not very healable even with the codes, unless Fate gave permission.

Error slowly moved closer to Fatal. **_"Please, calm down. I won't hurt you, or your child."_**

 **"WoN't HuRt BaBy?"** Fatal asked.

**_ "I won't." _ **

Error gently placed a hand on Fatal, using his strings to slowly remove or rewrite the Destroyer coding.

'Stupid set events in timelines' Umbra thought unhappily getting up, seeing that Reaper was coming to. It was amazing the balance didn't try to kill the yet to be born Sorell as Sorell in his own timeline never had the chance to be born.  
"This.. is not how I wanted to wake up," Umbra sighed walking towards Error and Fatal.

 ** _"This was supposed to be my down time..."_** Error grumbled. **_"Stupid Fate."_**

The glitches reappeared over Fatal's right eye and his glitching seemed to be calming down.

"Geno...." Reaper whispered still mostly out of it, a shocked look on his face seeing his body looked like it hadn't been touched and the devastation round them.

 ** _ **"He will be okay Death."**_** Error told him.

Goth was still crying. His cries got Geno's attention.

"Baby..." He gently nuzzled Goth.

"Will you let me heal him as much as I can Geno, you might not know me but Reaper does. I am Umbra, and little Goth needs me rather badly right now," Umbra said quietly.

Geno's arms were trembling, but he eventually nodded his head, and he handed Goth over to Umbra.

Goth looked up at the new skeleton, his right eyesocket was a mess and he had a few scratches and bumps on his body, but to his parent's surprise, he giggled and he started to babble at Umbra. He liked this new skeleton.

He felt like Shades-Goth-Me.

He tried to reach for Umbra's scarf.

Umbra smiled gently, baby Searcher was amazing as his elder self.

Geno whimpered as his left eye returned to normal and Error removed his hand. He had done what he could for Geno. **_"Fatal Error won't make a reappearance, unless you find yourself in another situation like this... I'm out of here."_** The glitching Skeleton muttered, before he disappeared.

"Let me," Umbra said reaching forward, and gently healed the new injuries to Geno.

Geno sighed in relief. "Is Goth going to be okay?" He asked.

Umbra focused on the tiny baby in his arms, running healing magic carefully through Goth. You had to be careful healing Baby monsters, as there magic was fragile.  
'Oh.. definitely not tell him this' Umbra thought, finding damage to Searchers soul which he quickly repaired with no traces left of the damage.  
"I... couldn't return his eyelight," Umbra finally said a few minutes later, he could already see Fates code locking the event in place. "I made sure the scaring wasn't very noticeable, I'm sorry." and he truely was.  
Gently he passed Goth to his parents, parents that never knew how close there child was to passing on from soul damage.

Geno held Goth close to him, gently nuzzling him, his Baby Bones was okay..

Reaper wrapped his wings around both of them, shielding Goth from the world. He could see the scar that Umbra was speaking of, it was a faint grey tinge around his right eyesocket. "Thank you Umbra." He said as Goth latched onto Geno's scarf, with his remaining eyelight wide as he stared at Reaper's wings.

"All children are special," Umbra said, and faded from sight back to the void... it would be a few years till Solas woke or he was needed again.

Goth whimpered as that nice presence left, but somehow, he knew, that he would see him again.

OoOoO

Ink blinked, there was Umbra.. shopping?

Before anyone asked, this was Ser's Ink.

"Umbra?" Ink asked curious.

"Hello Inky," Umbra said, turning away from the store window he was staring at.

"Its been awhile, I was curious of why you are here?" Ink asked, after all it never a bad thing to be polite to a being that was older then himself and could swat him like a fly.

"I was just curious," Umbra said, Ink could see he was grinning behind his scarf.

"About what?" Ink asked.

"Have you ever thought of making an AU, where you mix Dreamtale, Chickens, Dancetale together?" Umbra asked.

"Ohhhhhh...." Ink said with huge eyelights.

"Ink.. Ink no!" Dream cried, having come across the two as they started talking.

"Chicken Dreams and Nightmares," Ink cried.  
"No.. just no," Dream cried, Ink ran off and Dream followed.  
Dream... had to use a lot of... persuasion, to stop Ink from creating that horrible AU.

Nine months later Palette was born.

Umbra was relieved, as Searchers Palette had almost not been conceived on time.

OoOoO

Solas giggled. Big Brother was sleeping on a grassy slope near the mountain in which humans sealed Monsters.

Solas had also found a lot of wild flowers. He picked several of them, before he carried them back to his Big Brother and he started to make flower rings out of them, slipping them onto his Big Brother's fingers.

He had to go and get more flowers so that he could tuck a few of them into his Big Brother's scarf. Solas then sat down to make a Flower Crown, placing his grand creation on his Big Brother's head.

His Big Brother was now wearing flower rings and a crown, with several flowers tucked into his scarf and his pockets. Solas smiled. "Solas loves Big Brother." He whispered.

OoOoO

Solas seemed to be quiet after the threat was made. He was holding onto the oversized brown scarf that he was wearing tightly. His hood was casing a shadow over his face.

His _solid_ face, the other Skeleton in the room could see the slightly glowing golden patterns spiraling around his cheeks...

"Did you just threaten to kill my Big Brother?" Solas asked, without a trace of his usual childish trill to his voice. "Did you just threaten to **kill my Big BROTHER?!"**

The childish aura was gone from Solas as huge white wings burst through the back of his cloak and a scythe appeared in Solas's hands. **"You know, I find it so funny when others mistake me for a child, and I am a child, but I was here before Ink and Error showed up. I have been alive longer than the oldest AU that you can think of, I am older then the Reset and if you think that I will just stand aside and let you hurt my Big Brother? You can't kill him, Big Brother is older then me."** The top of the scythe was pressed against the other Skeleton's chest. **And I won't let you try.."**

Solas tilted his head back so that the stream of Golden Magic from his eyelight could be seen. **"It's a lovely day outside..."**

OoOoO

Umbra watched the scene with interest.

Error remembered.

Searcher and Shades escaped part of Fates chains.

"Big Brother?" Solas asked.

"You done with the idiot?" he asked smiling.

"Yes, Solas sent the meanie to... the mad house?" Solas said frowning for a moment.

"Your such a good little brother, looking out for your big brother," Umbra said kindly, Solas beamed.

OoOoO

Swearing filled the air as Umbra felt Reaper being ripped away by Fear, the fact he didn't remember this event meant it was a set event so Fate had locked it away.

He left the void to see Solas, he needed the cuddles.

OoOoO

"Another set event," Umbra scowled as Palette Roller was taken, the grandchild of Fate.

"Solas doesn't like this," Solas said, the tiny Guardian scowling.

"I'll be back in a bit," Umbra said, he suddenly remembered a rather cryptid message he got the last time around. And wow, this was funner from this side.

Trolling his past/future self Shades was hilarious.

OoOoO

Solas knew he shouldn't be away, but Umbra was out and about again on fates errands.

The Goth known as Shades was knitting.

And it was a kitty too!

"Kitty," Solas said fading into visibility.

"Um..." Shades said looking up, clearly shocked to see him there.

Shades reminded Solas of big brother for some strange reason.

"Kitty," Solas said again looking at the cat puppet.

"You like cats huh..." Shade said, Solas nodded happily.

"Here, enjoy," Shades said giving Solas the kitty.

"Solas says thank you," Solas said happily, and swiftly headed home.

Umbra agreed the puppet was cute.

OoOoO

"Kitty..." Solas sniffed, Umbra sighed and hugged his counterpart,

"Sorry love, nothing we could do. It did its duty," he gently replied, Solas responded that with more tears.

"Want kitty," Solas said hugging his kitty puppet.

"I know, I'll be right back little one," Umbra said, as he had some Goths to separate.

OoOoO

Umbra collapsed.

"Big Brother!" Solas cried horrified, as Umbra seemed to drop to the ground like a puppet with there strings cut.

Umbra moaned and slowly sat up, Solas hugging him and crying.

Time had caught up.

Shades had now gone back in time to become Umbra.

"Big Brother..." Solas whimpered.

"I'm fine Solas, Fate just released the memories she blocked," Umbra said pulling Solas onto his lap, and it was true. Umbra no longer had future knowledge unless Ink gave it to him, and he.. felt better?

Oh..

He was the only one in the timeline now.

For awhile there were three of him, Shades, Error and himself. Then just shades and himself.

Now only this aspect was in the timelines.

He clutched Solas to his chest, so much depended on what Searcher did next.

So much to gain, and so much to loose.

Solas could only do his best to confront his brother, as the ancient being cried into Solas hood.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Three: In Moment before...

"Think Think..." Umbra demanded of himself, walking back and forth his jacket swishing at his agitated walking. He had retreated to the void taking Solas with him, really not wanting to be anywhere but a place he was secure from everything.

Over time the void core had become a rather lovely place, a black sky with false stars. Black Sandy floors that somehow seemed to look as if they were slowly swirling to the middle of the area to a black hole.

Till you got closer, to discover a rather large bed that was comfy as heck.

That was where Solas was at the moment, deeply sleeping all his white standing out quite well in the darkness here. Oh he had other furniture and items, but they would be invisible to others unless he allowed them to see and interact with them.

So far he only allowed Solas access to everything, as he didn't have other guests other then his tiny counterpart.

And no matter how Solas asked, he was not turning his black abyssal into a temple so he could be an official Guardian like Solas.

And he did not need a throne.

It had been six hours since his past self had gone back in time, six hours since the time loop had closed.

He tried not to hyperventilate in panic, as that would scare Solas.

Six hours since Fate had released his blocked memories, and he realized he'd lost allooot more memories then he thought he had.

The worse part he understood why the Fates had done so, so there would be no issue of paradox till he closed the time loop.

Yet it was annoying, as he realized there was a clear divide between himself and the personality of Shades.

"Great, I now have a split personality due to this," he scowled the gold of his eyelights blazing and wasn't that funny still to have two eyelights, he rubbed his temples.

He also still could not take on any form then this, so no Error or Shades form.

Fates hands were still on him too tightly.

Umbra wanted to go home to his mama and papa.

His soul hurt...

Sighing he walked to the bed and slipped out of his clothing, he smiled as Solas cuddled against in his sleep.

He missed home, but he would miss this also in the end.

How much of Solas and himself would remain at the end?

OoOoO

Waking up was annoying.

He's wanted to sleep longer.

Not that either Solas or himself needed sleep, they liked it and sleeping refreshed there minds.

Just like they didn't need to sleep.

Or technically breath.

It got a bit weird, thank you Fate.

Not.

Gently he untangled Solas from him, the tiny skeleton was a cuddler in his sleep.

"I'll be right back," Umbra told Solas as he dressed, Solas would know even in sleep

He walked forwards shadows shifting around him, one second he was in the void core and the next he was in a familiar kitchen. He sat down in a chair, watching the Geno of Searchers side move around the counter.

"Everything is going to turn out okay in the end..." he finally said, feeling the unhappiness radiate off Geno.

Geno turned around to see Umbra. "Umbra... What do you mean by that?"

"I have been involved in this mess since the beginning of it."he said quietly "I was there when the Multiverse was split into two, when everything was Reset, and I can tell you one thing Geno, this mess will end soon."

"If you know about the Split Multiverse, then do you know what happened to Shades?" Geno asked hopefully.

"Shades will be okay." Umbra said. "He just has to take a detour first, but he will find his way home. Geno.... What happens next depends on what your son does... Searcher's actions will dictate how this will end... If he and Shades will be freed to go home and never be the Error again," he replied, not that he could tell anyone that Shades took a trip via time and he was Shades.

Like that would go well.

OoOoO

"Big brother?" Solas sleepily said as Umbra returned, poking his head out of the comfy star patterned sheets.

"Just a small errand, I'm done for now," He replied laying down, not bothering to pull his clothing off. His smiled a bit seeing Solas was cuddling with his cat puppet, and that gave him an idea.

"Hey Solas, do you want me to make you pyjamas?" he asked.

"Solas wants to know why?" Solas asked curious.

"Because, I'm pretty sure you'd love Kitty pyjamas I could make."

"Kitty!" Solas said climbing on top of him.

"So that's a yes then," Umbra laughed.

"Kitty," Solas said again.

"I have to be able to get up to make them little light," Umbra smiled.

A giggle filled the air.

"Oh.. its going that way then," Umbra laughed "Well, then this is mutiny."

"Solas is having a mutiny," the small guardian giggled.

Solas shrieked in laughed as Umbra suddenly say up, and began to tickle him.

Solas loved his big brother.

OoOoO

Umbra kept an eyelight on Solas as he ran all about the void core, the small skeleton wearing a loose purple pyjama top and bottom, the top had a hood and large puffy cat ears on top. The bottom had a long fluffy tail, the finishing touch were paw booties and paw gloves. Solas was pretending to be a cat right now and he'd taken quite a few pictures.

At the moment he had summoned up multiple screens, to keep an eye on the split multiverses.. for right now his own didn't have an Error to destroy and Ser was to busy to keep Ink from over creating.

"Maybe ground them both again for now?" he thought, probably a good idea since both Inky's were getting a bit over creative again.

"Mewwwwwww," Solas cried, Umbra found himself with his arms fully of Solas who was pretending to purr.

"Think I should ground the paint boys Solas?" Umbra grinned.

"Mewww!" Solas said grinning and nodding.

OoOoO

"Is... he sleep Creating?" a voice said in confusion.

Dream turned and blinked, spotting the being known as Umbra.

"Yes, I think the lack of creating finally got to him," Dream said worriedly, knowing that Ink hadn't created in forever while they searched.

"And no one woke him up?" Umbra asked tilting there head.

"Watch.." Dream said dryly throwing a rock, the sleeping Ink slashed out with Broomie and the rock dusted.

"Searcher so owes me for this," Umbra said, Dream wondered who Searcher was.

"I'm grounding Ink, his creative energies are over flowing and he'll just start over again," Umbra said.

"At this point, grounding will be best," Dream said, Umbra rushed forward grabbing Ink with shadows. Ink collapsed into a deeper sleep, Umbras magic keeping him from lashing out.

"I'll have to delete this AU, its unfinished with nothing alive... otherwise it will cause issues," Umbra said.

"Thank you," Dream said leaving.

Moments later the AU was gone, alone with Umbra and Ink.

OoOoO

Thankfully grabbing his own Ink was easier, apparently feedback from the other Ink counterpart had started this creative spree.

Some day's he hated being the eldest in the multiverse, always having to ground Fate's kid.

He wondered how his Shade aspect would take this.

OoOoO

"Brother..." Solas cried, hugging the elder skeleton tightly.

"I was hoping this time would never come," Umbra said nuzzling Solas.

"Solas doesn't want to fight, But Solas will have to fight," Solas said unhappily.

"We need to hurry then little one," Umbra softly said.

Solas nodded and cuddled closer, ready to be taken to his temple.

"You might want to change, unless you want to fight in your kitty Pyjamas," Umbra said amused, Solas squeaked and slipped from his grasp to change to his guardian wear.

"Ready!" Solas finally said.

Moments later they were in the ageless light temple, Umbra walked across the sand not leaving even an impression of his feet and gently placed Solas there.

"Don't wanna fight," Solas whispered tearfully.

"I know love, but big brother will watch and forever love you no matter what happens,' Umbra said kissing his forehead, and gently wiped Solas tears away.

"Love you too," Solas said, Umbra gave a watery smile and vanished from sight.

Fate commanded him to watch.

OoOoO

Umbra sneezed, invisible and unheard by the multiverse.

He was pretty sure it was freaking Fears fault, that and his fake Mafia Sans self.

OoOoO

Fear just laughed and he cut Palette's arm open with the knife, letting the marrow splatter against the door of the Temple that had settled to a stop at the end of the broken bridge, where he had dragged Palette to. The doors glowed slightly, before they slowly opened up.

"I don't need the Creator's kid anymore, you can have him now." Fear slowly walked towards the open doors. "And you might want to be careful Kid, this bridge is really unstable, one small mistake and it will just crumble away, sending you into the Void..."

Palette tried to get up, but Fear just laughed. "But then again, I have to get rid of all of the witnesses." He pulled out his gun as Palette finally managed to get up and Error rushed forwards.

Palette heard something go off but he felt no pain, he slowly turned around to see a glitching skeleton there, the Destroyer, with a hole through his chest. He had used his strings to move Palette to more safer, stable ground, which explained why he felt no pain, but to do that, Error had taken his place.

The doors slammed shut behind Fear, and Palette could only watch as the bridge started to crumble, sending the Destroyer into the Void.

_"Error!"_

OoOoO

Marrow had been spilled.

Fate grinned, and it wasn't a nice grin.

"You were always a sore looser Fear," she sneered.

Looks like this story was coming to an end.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Four: The Light Temple

Umbra clenched his hands into fists, frustration that he couldn't interfere.

Fear was making there way through the temple.

He could feel Seeker was safe now, hurt but safe.

He'd almost lost track of Searcher in his Error form, sure he'd be able to retrieve him from the Void... but only after he put him back together.

But that was very painful.

Thankful that wasn't the case, Searcher had only landed at Solas secret entrance.

He gave a chuckle.

At least that entrance was better then the maze...

Kinda.

OoOoO

Solas tilted his head, his body a blaze of light.

Someone was by his secret entrance.

He could also feel the steps of Fear in the many corridors of the master maze his temple contained.

"Big brother?" he asked, feeling as if the being by the doors was important.

Umbra couldn't speak as fate had him stationed to watch, but he felt the others magic hug him.

His decision then.

Smiling, he signalled his secret door to open.

Then relaxed, either way it would be awhile till either contender arrived.

OoOoO

Fear swore angrily at another dead end, the Temple didn't look so big from the outside.

But what made this worse, was that this Temple stunk of Fate's little Toy Umbra... That meant Fate was watching him through Umbra and her power kept him from using the shortcut of blasting through the walls.

"I'm going to find a way to kill that freaking Shadow dog of yours Fate." Fear snarled as a spike trap almost got him.

OoOoO

Umbra watched.

He watched Solas.

He watched Fear.

He watched Searcher.

He even watcher Seeker outside the temple.

All he saw the Fates saw.

Yet... Searcher was near his breaking point.

"Fate... may I help him along?" Umbra whispered t the one that held him in chains.

He felt relief, he got a yes.. but he'd still have to watch.

His right eyelight vanished.

Part of himself was here was watching, but part of him moved in a ghostly shape of his true self to Searcher.

"You can do this Searcher." Umbra.. no the shade of Shades said.

"Shades?" Searcher said hopefully.

"You're so close to the end." Shades said. "Come on Ser. This is the last Temple. The last Guardian. You can do this. You're almost there! Come on Ser, we made a promise to go home together, right?"

"You're so close to the end." Shades said. "Come on Ser. This is the last Temple. The last Guardian. You can do this. You're almost there! Come on Ser, we made a promise to go home together, right?"

Umbra shivered as his right eyelight reappeared, sending any part of himself out in that shadowy ghost state was not a good feeling.

"Good luck Searcher... keep moving ever forward," Umbra whispered.

OoOoO

Fear swore, violently, when the floor collapsed underneath one of his feet, sending that foot into a pool of things that he didn't want to know about, and he never expected to find them here....

He was pissed when he managed to get his foot out. His shoe had been ruined, thanks to that pool.

He was going to kill Fate's Little Toy when he got his hands on him.

That Shadow Dog was going to die.

OoOoO

Solas giggled wickedly, that was the only was to describe it.

Umbra facepalmed.

He was almost embarrassed Fear had fallen for that trap Solas had set.

He might have taken pictures.

OoOoO

Umbra made a face, and mentally flipped a switch.

Searcher may be a friend, but no one got to badmouth the temple of light.

"Oh come on! That is so unfair!"

Umbra giggled, he was pretty sure Ser would get revenge on him somehow once this was all over.

Now... how to break it to Ser without killing him.

OoOoO

Fear violently swore when he was suddenly drenched in several litres of a questionable liquid, his suit was ruined.

That Dog was going to die!

OoOoO

Solas cackled.

Umbra sighed, that was definitely a searcher cackle is anything.

He had built the traps, but he was not asking Solas where he got.. that.

Solas crackled. He was never going to tell Big Brother just were he got the liquids from.

He knew that getting Fresh, and both of the Blueberries, to help him get them was a brilliant idea.

But he was never telling Big Brother about that, or about the times where the Blueberries kidnapped him and they cooked deadly tacos together, and that there was only one Fresh...

OoOoO

Truth worried.

Seeker was missing.

Shades was missing.

Searcher was alone.

He placed a hand over his chest, above where his soul rested.

"Come home everyone, please," he whispered to the starry skies.

OoOoO

Umbra giggled.  
It was the first rule of dungeons... er temples.  
Never take the stairs.

OoOoO

Solas breathed.

Solas waited.

Fear was almost there.

He was also almost there.

Solas didn't know who he was yet?

Just that he was very important.

_This way_

He wondered...

What this day would bring him.

OoOoO

He was finally here....

Fear lit a cigar before he put it in his mouth. This was his moment...

He could sense the other Skeleton in the Temple, but that Skeleton was too late....

He pulled out the Sapphire that he had been carrying around for so long.

The Sapphire with the God of Death in it...

And he walked through the Doors to the Guardian's lair.

OoOoO

Solas sat still, unmoving as the wicked one entered.

He seemed to be asleep, but he wasn't. He could sense everything around himself.

This... was his first official battle.

One of the reasons that Fate and Umbra had created him.

He opened his eyes and he grinned.

It was not a friendly smile.

The two braziers on either side of his throne went out as he stood up.

OoOoO

"The Guardian is a child?!" Fear yelled.

The Guardian of the Final Temple summoned one of his weapons, it looked like a simple wooden staff with a white jewel on top of it.

Fear laughed. This was going to be so easy, because why could anyone trust a child to protect something like the prize that he was after?

The next thing Fear knew he was already waist deep in sand that was trying to eat him like the void.

He growled, before he laughed. "Oh Brat, do you really think that _I'm_ going to be the one that you fight?"

Solas said nothing.

He forced his Magic into the Sapphire in his hand.

OoOoO

Reaper screamed as something forced it's way into his Soul, it hurt. It hurt so much!

His prison was cracking, breaking down. Reaper could see the pink colour taking over his Soul.

The sliver wings around him fought back, but Reaper was forced to watch as the Magic tore them apart, with the feathers being scattered everywhere....

OoOoO

Fear crushed the Sapphire in his hands, freeing Reaper. "This is the God of Death Brat. And he will be your opponent."

Solas stared as the controlled Reaper appeared, he could see the stress being forced on the being of Death's Soul.

He could feel the echo of Umbra's rage, such things were taboo... his staff's jewel began to glow.

Fear laughed, even as he climbed out of the sand. "Reaper... Kill the Brat."

Reaper seemed to be struggling, Solas could see the pink tinge in the God's Soul, even as the God summoned a Bone to use as a staff.

"Goth?" Reaper asked. "Baby Bones? Is that you? Goth, please, run. I don't want to hurt you...."

"I am not the one you seek, Protector of the Final Path, I am the Guardian of the Light Temple." Solas said quietly, his Soul hurt.

(Brother...) He whispered through the link to his counterpart.

((Breathe little light, all will be revealed soon enough..)) Umbra whispered back.

"DAD!!!"

Fear's eyelights went wide. "That's impossible!" He yelled. "That freak child went missing two years ago!"

He realized that the Skeleton that he saw with the Creator's child, before he kidnapped him, had not been the child attempting to move on from his missing friend, but he had actually been that missing friend!

"You do not belong here Fear!" Solas yelled, the Magic around the Guardian was strong. "You have damaged enough as the False Lover. Leave!"

Fear growled, before he forced Reaper to move. He had to finish this before the Freak Child got here!

Reaper swung his bone staff at the Guardian, he didn't want to do this!

Only for the strike to be blocked easily by another staff, Solas didn't even budge.

As it was, Reaper's Death powers would not effect him, and yes, he was alive, compared to the other temple guardians...

But his soul shard was born from Reaper's child.

Fear probably should have realized that the Final Guardian would be different.

Fate was a bitch after all.

"Solas is sorry, but I have my duty." Solas said, looking up to meet Reaper's face.

Reaper froze when he saw that face, because apart from the Golden patterns and his Golden eyelight, Solas looked like his Baby Bones's identical twin, he even had the eyesocket scar!

Fear growled. This was not how this was meant to go! Reaper should be crushing the Guardian, but he wasn't even doing that!

Solas swung his staff, easily overpowering the other staff, which was weakened due to Reaper's Power.

That other staff was not meant for one like Death.

The force slammed Reaper across the temple room, sending him several feet into the white sands.

"Solas is sorry, Solas has to defend and destroy those who keep trying." Solas simply said.

Fear was pissed when Reaper was thrown into the sands. This was not possible! "You stupid Brat!" He yelled, pulling out a gun and firing several times at Solas.

He didn't care about Reaper anymore, the God of Death was useless, and once he had what he wanted from this Temple. He was going to throw Reaper into the Void.

Solas looked down, bewildered as several things impacted onto him. He blinked as several flattened bits of metal fell to the sands below.

Were those supposed to hurt him?

Fear stared at the Guardian, his bullets hadn't even scratched him!

"Big Brother said that he made sure that Solas couldn't get hurt easily, because he hates Solas being sad." Solas said looking at Fear.

OoOoO

Umbra smirked.

His baby brother was kicking butt.

But wow Fear gave up way to easily.

But Fear was a coward after all.

OoOoO

"Who is your Brother Brat?!" Fear asked.

"Big Brother is watching." Solas said.

The lights vanished, and all that there was, was shadows.

Then the light returned, but only this time, the two braziers by the throne were lit. One Flame seemed to made out of pure light, the other seemed to be made out of pure shadows.

"Big Brother really doesn't like you." Solas replied.

Fear was frozen. "That Shadow Dog is here?!" He yelled. He growled before he forced Reaper to stand up again.

He made the Death God summon a jagged bone, and he made Reaper hold it against his own Soul. "Brat, give me what I want or I will make Reaper hurt himself. He can't kill himself, I am a bit unsure about that, but he will be in a lot of pain... Do you want that to happen to him?"

Solas laughed, it wasn't a friendly laugh.

"Solas cannot agree, Solas will never agree, even if he wanted to." Solas replied.

"Death can't take Death, you nimrod." Solas coldly responded and he smirked, he suddenly sounded a lot older.

"Oh... and Big Brother is a kitty and not a dog." Solas said, a second later.

Fear was about to say something, but at that moment, the doors were thrown open by someone in a hooded white cloak.

Solas blinked, the other was here.. The one that called to him.

Searcher could see the one that was calling to him. The tiny child in the white cloak, but his attention was soon caught by something else. "Dad!" He yelled.

Reaper stared at his Baby Bones, his eldest son, who wasn't as small as he remembered him being. Goth was a beanpole now...

"Solas is wondering if we can get on with the fight, Big Brother promised me ice cream?" Solas asked, and he also wanted to hide in his brother's jacket space for a while.

"That's a good idea!" Searcher said. "I'm hungry. I had to run up here and outrunning the Void was not fun!" He brought out his Dad's scythe, and his fluffy wings erupted from his back. "Shall we get rid of Fear first? He's getting in the way."

Solas tilted his head, he could feel his brother's amusement.

"Solas agrees, Fear is cluttering my temple and Big Brother is annoyed at his language." Solas said.

Reaper couldn't help himself. He dropped the jagged bone and he reached out for his son's wings, feeling the soft feathers in his hands.

They brought him so much peace. He was happy. He had his son back.

Fear screamed as he felt Reaper's Soul fighting back, breaking free from his control.

"Dad..." Searcher said. "You can let go of me now... I need to deal with Fear..."

Reaper reluctantly removed his hands from the fluffy wings, hovering over to a corner where he could rest.

Solas returned his staff to his weapon space, and he pulled out his own scythe, which was white ,with white-gold designs engraved on it. White ribbons hung from the handle, with a small yin/yang symbol on it. He had a matching yin/yang symbol on his throne. Big Brother had gifted to him on his hundredth birthday, and he could even feel Big Brother's power in it.   
"Solas doesn't like to fight, it makes brother sad. But Solas must always do his duty." Solas said.

Searcher nodded his head, before he looked at Fear. "This ends now Fear!" He said. "No more games!"

Fear pulled out another gun. "No! This was meant to my moment of glory, that Soul is rightfully mine! And no Death Gods, Demi Gods and Guardians are going to take that from me! I am in control here! I am the one who decides your Fates, so you should just lay down and die!"

He fired the gun, even as Searcher summoned a skull to act as his shield from the bullets. Fear just smirked before he used Blue Magic to curve the path of the bullets, sending some of them around the skull.

Solas caught the bullets and he yawned, why did people think that battles were exciting?

Searcher just grinned at the Guardian, before he took a shortcut, reappearing behind Fear and swinging his Dad's scythe.

Fear used a Gun to block it, but the scythe cut right through it.

"Please hold still and die." Solas said, swinging his own scythe.

Fear took a shortcut and he reappeared a few metres away. Solas's scythe had cut the jacket of his suit.

"You little Brat! My Suit was ruined from one of the traps and you just made it worse!"

"Big Brother took pictures for Solas, it was really funny." Solas giggled.

Searcher heard someone laughing and he couldn't help but to giggle as well, at the same time as Solas.

Fear growled. "It's not funny, ya little shits!"

Searcher didn't know what came over him, but he growled, as his eyelight lit up. "Shut up Fear! Or I will scrub your mouth out with soap!" He was so mad about Fear swearing in front of the Guardian, but why did he feel this way?

Umbra glared, hoping Felt felt his anger at swearing in front of Solas and Ser.

"Come on Fate, let me maim him a little. I'll be good," Umbra snarled angrily, he felt the Fates give him a look that translated to... 'yeah pull the other one.'

"Big Brother doesn't like bad words." Solas said, giving Fear the sad eyes.

Fear just ignored the sad eyes, sending Gaster Blasters after both of them, but he was shivering....

Searcher frowned, but his mind was working in overtime, what did Fear want? He was clearly after Ink's Soul, but if this Temple was like the other Temples that he had been too, the Soul would not be here...

But what if, Fear did not know that it wasn't here? He seemed so sure that the Soul would be here, it was almost like he had been given information that it would be here...

Searcher's eyelight went wide once he realised what was going on.

"You've been talking to your Counterpart in the other Multiverse that was created when the original Multiverse was spilt into two!"

"Big Brother always said that Fear was smarter then an average bear." Solas said.

Searcher snickered.

So, the Freak Child was smarter then he looked, to figure out that he had been in contract with the other Fear....

"And you have been talking to yours!" He snarled.

Searcher laughed. "I can't believe that you are such an idiot!"

"What do you mean by that?" Fear growled.

Searcher crackled. "Because the Soul was never here from the beginning! My Fate never put the Soul in a Temple!"

"WHAT?!"

"Yes, Solas was wondering why the False Lover came here, Inky's soul is not here." Solas replied. "Big Brother found it funny that people think that it is in the Temples."

Searcher was laughing so hard that he was using his Dad's scythe to stop him from collapsing because he was laughing too much.

Solas sighed, this was cutting into his Big Brother time. He idly dug though his item pocket and he pulled out Moon chocolate, he nibbled on the treat and he watched the drama, as Umbra would say.

 _"THIS IS NOT FUNNY!"_ Fear screamed.

"He needs volume control." Solas muttered.

Searcher wiped the laughter tears away from his eyesockets, before he summoned a Gaster Blaster. "Let's get back to business."

"Try not to break my Temple, Big Brother built it and it's where I stash my toys." Solas sighed, licking the last bit of chocolate off of his fingers.

"Well, if I had a cool Temple like this, I could have a skylight or something, so I could kick the meanies out of my Temple."

"Big Brother said, that when I can sing things into existence via codes with Fate's blessing, he'd give me one." Solas pouted, and well, to say the least.... him and singing codes were not a good mix. "Brother's Jacket was fixed after all."

"Well, I guess that it's the old fashioned way then." Searcher grinned.

 _"STOP IGNORING ME!"_ Fear screamed, right before several bone attacks attacked him from below.

"He's still there?" Solas said bewildered. "Solas has to remember that Big Brother can only watch right now, so Solas has to keep an eye on the invaders."

"Yeah, and I have a feeling that a certain 'Parent' has already called dibs on Fear."

"Parent? Oh.. Parents." Solas muttered "Big Brother mentioned them, Brother was like Papa for Solas."

"Really?" Searcher asked.

"Yes, Solas has a Mama too." Solas said, and he could not explain that, yet.   
((Mama Searcher...)) Umbra laughed.

 _'Why do I have a feeling that someone is laughing at me?'_ Searcher thought to himself, right before Fear charged towards them, and right into an open portal that Searcher had opened for him.

OoOoO

Fear swore as he landed outside the Temple.

"So, you're Fear..."

He got up and he slowly turned around to see the blazing red-blue eyelight of an angry Mom.

Geno cracked his knuckles.

Fear whimpered.

OoOoO

Solas sighed as The False Lover vanished, he vanished his weapon and he walked back to his throne, before he sat down.

At this point, he had to wait until Searcher Challenged him.

He clenched his fists, which were hidden by his robes, he... didn't want this.

Win or loose, he lost.

Why did Fate create him like this?

Umbra would lose him, and he would still be alone in Fate's chains.

But he would be with Mama.

Solas leaned his face down, waiting for the last two invaders, Reaper's and Searcher's, decision.

"I wonder which Parent found him first?" Searcher asked. "It could be Dream, or Mom, or even Nightmare."

He stopped talking when he noticed the look on Solas's face. "What's wrong?" He asked, as he put his Dad's scythe down, before he walked over to Solas. "Why are you so sad? Does it have to do with why I have been feeling this call ever since I entered this Temple?"

Solas said nothing and he sighed.

He would rather not fight.

But... it was built into his very core coding, by Fate.

Searcher said nothing, he just listened to the call, and he carefully wrapped his arms around Solas.

"Solas is the last Temple Guardian that you must defeat." Solas said quietly, he seemed to be enjoying the hug. "Your Path to the soul will stop otherwise."

"I know.... I challenge you for the Key Piece Kid..."

"Are you prepared for all that will follow, the good and the bad. You will breath joy and sorrow, for the final Key?" Solas asked formally, dropping the child speech, since this was important.

He hated to speak like this, it wasn't him...

"Yes..."


	29. Chapter Twenty-Five: Rewind

And with that the lights went out, every single brazier leaving the temple in pitch blackness.

It might be the temple of light, but Solas was light and this darkness didn't effect him at all.

((Light and Shadow, two sides of one so should always work together)) Umbra laughed.

The sand began to shift like a living thing.

Searcher gasped as the lights went out, leaving him in the dark.

He reached out with his Magic for his Dad's scythe, only to stop...

This was his final Guardian fight, and it didn't feel right for him to use his Dad's scythe.

He used his Magic to return his Dad's scythe to him, and once Reaper's scythe was back in his hands, Searcher felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders....

He summoned his original scythe, he started this journey, using his scythe as his weapon, and it only felt right to end this journey with his scythe....

The scythe started to glitch and evolve, the blade became longer, emerging from the open jaws of a Gaster Blaster that had tear markings in his Magic colour on it's cheeks. The tail of the Gaster Blaster was wrapped around the staff of the scythe and tied around the area where Searcher would hold his scythe, was a red ribbon.

He could hear something shifting in the darkness.

Solas smiled keeping himself invisible, after all his normal form was rather.. noticeable in the dark.

Searcher couldn't see the small Guardian anywhere, but he could hear his voice.

"Can you face it again?" Solas asked, a worm-snake formed out of the sand.  
The false guardian leapt forward.

"Face what again?" He whispered, as he closed his eyes, choosing to trust the skills in fighting blind that he had learned from being Error.

He could hear something moving towards him.

He jumped up, summoning a bone to use as a springboard, going higher.

"You must defeat it, you have done so already."

"Defeat..." Searcher whispered, as his mind went into overtime, having used his long sealed away ability to hover, to slow his descent. "A past Guardian... But which one..."

There was the sound of slithering on sand.

"This place is covered in sand, like my first Temple... The Worm Guardian..." Searcher frowned. "I need to find the nearest wall...." He summoned several bone attacks, sending them flying everywhere, waiting to hear the sound of a bone attack hitting a wall.   
"There was Earth, there was forest, there was ice and fire, then light," Solas whispered voice echoing.

He heard the sound of bone attack hitting a wall and he smirked.

Searcher let himself float down to the ground, before he took off running, dragging his scythe behind him to leave a trail as he headed for the wall.

The sand rumbled under his feet as the worm came from below.

"That's it Wormy! Follow the Skeleton!" Searcher yelled as he took a Shortcut to stay ahead of the Worm, heading towards the wall.

The worm followed, much simpler then the true guardian of the Earth temple.

Searcher laughed as he reached the wall, turning around and banging the end of his scythe against the ground.

Solas facepalmed as the false worm guardian jumped forward.

He could hear the worm jumping towards him and he moved out of the way of it's path.

There was a thump as worm met wall, it crumbled and turned back into white sand. To the farthest north of the room, a brazier lit the flame the color of the Earths temples sand.

Searcher looked north when he saw the flame with the color of the sand from the Earth Temple, it actually made it a little bit easier for him to see, but it didn't help him much.

Everything was still covered in Darkness. He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Ahhh!"

Reaper laughed before he hugged his son. "Did you fight that creature in Underdesert Gothy?"

"Yeah, you found it's remains, didn't you, Dad? And the Temple, and that was when you was taken, right?"

"Yeah... Just be careful Baby Bones. I did find a lot of your marrow and your Magic there."

"I'll be fine Dad, just go and find somewhere safe, and don't interfere with this. This is something that I have to do." Reaper nodded his head, before he floated over to the lit brazier.

It seemed to be the safest place in the room.

"The light edges has returned, but is it enough."

Reaper yelped and had to move as the second false guardian used him launchpad, the light briefly outlining the humanoid lizard from the Forest Temple.

((Why does everyone think the lights are the safe spot?)) Umbra asked, Solas wondered that too.

"Oh come on, I have to fight the Guardians from Shades's Temples too?!" Searcher yelled, even as he made sure that there was a bit of a distance between him and this Guardian.

"All is a cycle."  
The false forest guardian slashed acid towards Searcher.  
"All temples must be cleared before the light opened."

Searcher summoned skulls to act as shields from the acid, hiding behind them, even as he mentally went over what he remembered of this Guardian.

The false guardian laughed, its claws clicking as it jumped and used the walls as a jump point to come at another angle.

Searcher used the sounds that he heard as a way of locating the Guardian, he swiftly turned around and he summoned a Gaster Blaster, firing it.

Solas watched the False guardian return to sand, this was part fo teh challenge after all.  
In the far south of the room a single brazier lit, bright emerald of forest green of the trees above the Forest Temple.

((You could have made it last longer)) Umbra said.

(Yes... he still has two more to go through. He can only fight light once he is at the lowest) Solas responded.

He watched as the first Guardian that Shades faced turned into the white sand that lined the floors of this Temple.

In the far south of the room, a single brazier came to life, with flames that were the bright emerald and the forest green of the trees above the Forest Temple from Shades's half of their Split Multiverse.

He could see those flames coming from the south of the room, and if he was right, then he would have to face copies of the ice and the fire Guardians as well.

He wasn't tired, not yet, he couldn't give up, but he was worried about the Guardian of the Light Temple, he would have to face him too, right?

And if Shades had a third Temple, he would have to face a copy of that Guardian too....

He took a deep breath, before he adjusted his grip on his scythe, he wasn't going down without a fight.

"You saw the tree through the forest, Try not to burn..."  
A roar filled the air, the ground shook as something much larger shaped itself from the sand.

(My poor kitty...) Solas sulked.  
((You just had to be obsessed with cats)) Umbra sighed.

Searcher knew which Guardian that he was about to face from the sound of it's roar. He was about to face his second Guardian, the one that temporary stole his sight.

The temperature rose with ever step the false Fire guardian took, its form a bit of outline from the two braziers lit.

Searcher summoned several bone attacks, turning most of them blue as he rushed towards, summoning a Gaster Blaster as well. He left the Blaster behind to charge up it's attacks.

He was going to use the blue Magic to hold the Guardian down long enough for the Blaster to charge up it's attack.

The Fire guardian roared and breathed fire at him.

Searcher used what he had of the normal bone attacks to create a shield for himself, even as two of the blue bones went through the second Guardian's legs.

The false guardian shrieked, struggling to free its legs from there bony pins.

This was his chance!

He used more of the blue bones to pin down the Guardian's other legs and another two to close it's mouth. His shield would not be able to take another blow.

The guardian growled through its closed mouth, lava dripping out of the edges as it was truly pinned now.

Searcher backed off and he fired his Blaster at the Guardian.

The guardian fought, its sides veined with lava.

Then it crumbled to sand.

The far east Brazier lit with a red of Molten lava of the Fire Temple.

Searcher dismissed his Blaster, he could feel one of his knees shaking. He had put too much Magic into that Blaster.

"Try not to freeze Challenger," Solas voice echoed across the partially lit temple room.

A sound rasped, a cold brush of air went across the room from its darkest area by the final brazier in the west.

"Your Almost there."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Searcher yelled. "The exploding ice bear?!" He wrapped his cloak tighter around himself as he shivered from the cold.

The False ice guardian snuffled in the dark, lumbering forward til one could make out its large form and jutting horns.

Searcher held onto his scythe, waiting for the Guardian to make his move.

The bear yawned and lay down, and started snoring.

"....bears..." Solas grumbled.

Searcher gulped and he started to slowly make his way towards the bear, channelling his Magic into his scythe, making it glow.

((You might want to lower the temperature love, that's an ice bear in a warm temple)) Umbra giggled.  
Solas rolled his eyes, and lowered the rooms temperature.  
The bear sat up awake, a comically grumpy look on its face.

The temperature of the room dropped, causing Searcher to shiver again, before the bear sat up, awake, with a comical grumpy look on its face.

"Oh..." Searcher began to say, before he quickly swung his glowing scythe at the Guardian.

To bounce off it.  
"..." the bear growled.

"Meep..."

A roar filled the air as the false guardian got fully to its feet.

"I hate using these things in my birth form, but I don't have a choice..." Searcher muttered, even as the blue tearmarkings of Error appeared on his cheeks, and the strings started to form on his fingers.

Solas blinked, he had blocked the Error form as all the Temples did but he had forgotten to block that.  
The false ice guardian roared again and rushed forward teeth gleaming with frost.

Searcher lashed out with his strings, using them to get out of the way, before he swung his scythe again, but this time, he was aiming for the wings.

The guardian shrieked in pain as a wing was sliced off, the piece broken returned to being sand.

Its spun around and lashed out with its claws that left specks of ice in the air.

Searcher yelped when the ice connected with his leg, freezing it slightly. His frozen leg was heavy and it made moving difficult, but he couldn't stop now...

He took a shortcut onto the Guardian's back, before he summoned a jagged bone, and he stabbed the back of the bear's head.

The guardians body shuddered then collapsed back into sand.

Searcher should be glad these false guardians were much weaker then the true temple guardians.

It the west a brazier lit, with white ice like flames.

The room was silent.

Searcher had fallen into the white sand, he was exhausted, magically and physically. His scythe was embedded in the white sand besides his body.

He groaned as he slowly got up, using his scythe as a cane as he slowly got to his feet, testing his thawed out leg to make sure that it wasn't frozen anymore.

His tearmarkings, and his strings, had disappeared, and you could see the sweat running down his face.

"You have faced part of the cycle, but can you handle Light? you can always give up the challenge, there is no shame to walk away?" Solas asked from his throne, now visible enough to be seen without the final two braziers lit.

"I.... I can't give up!" Searcher yelled. "I have given up so much to get this far, and I have promises that I need to keep! I have others that are depending on me, waiting for me to come home! And if I give up now, everything will be for nothing.

Everyone's tears...

Everyone's pain...

Everyone's hopes, and their dreams...

And even now, even through we are so far apart...."

He could see Shades, hanging out with Truth, as if they were on a date or something.... And he could see himself and Palette, running over to them, waving, laughing without a care in the world....

"I want Palette to smile like he used to again, I want to hear the noises and feel the love of my family as we go about our day, I want that so much, and if I give up here, then I don't deserve any of that..."

He looked the Guardian in the eye.

"And for the first time, in a long time..." His eyelight lit up, becoming a swirling white and purple mix. "I have hope and I am Determined."

((He activated them all)) Umbra said gently, he was proud for Ser to finally take that final step.

(Yes... I was hoping he'd step away) Solas sighed.

((I know little brother)) Umbra said sadly.

The last two braziers lit, but the light was black.

"Then you are Ready Goth," he said instead of using challenger "Prepare yourself."  
And released his hold on his body, and became humanoid light and like Umbra he had wings of light and seemed to appear and disappear randomly.

Searcher held onto his scythe tightly, ready to make his move. He had to be smart during this fight, he was low on Magic and he was physically exhausted as well.

Solas floated in the air, his expression masked by his light.  
He reached out a hand and summoned his scythe, and waited,

Searcher slowly shifted one of his feet, sliding it behind the other one, as his eyelight flared.

Solas didn't move, waiting.

((Waiting is always the worst part)) Umbra whispered.

Searcher leapt forwards, swinging his scythe at the Guardian.

Solas leapt forward swinging his own scythe, they met with sparks at the two arcane weapons met.

Searcher frowned, pushing back against Solas.

Solas didn't budge, at all.

(So Impatient) Solas sighed.

"Damn it!" Searcher hissed, before he backed off, summoning a Gaster Blaster that he fired at Solas.

Solas was glad Searcher could not tell he rolled his eyes, he slipped backwards and fired a Gaster at the same time but his Gasters form seemed to be made of light. Yet it was just as powerful.

The Blasts hits each other, easily cancelling the other out.

"What's going on here?" Searcher asked, as he watched their Blasters channelling each other out.

Solas floated slightly in the air, watching, waiting.

(Hes not getting it) Solas sighed.  
((Bring up the next stage)) Umbra sighed, he hoped Searcher got it this time.  
Searcher yelped as the temple began to shake heavily, the white sand bounced as the walls seemed to transmute into endless mirrors.

These mirrors would not break if they were attacked, and then, all the flames in braziers that were lit, flared up.. and suddenly, the mirrors began to painfully reflect the light into the room.

Searcher closed his eyes again, but that wasn't enough to block out the painful light, it was like the mirrors were reflecting the light right into his eyes....

He could hardly see anything because of the reflected light... Wait...

"Why do you have so many mirrors Guardian?" He asked. "Are you trying to teach me something by using reflections?"

Solas facepalmed, it was one of those days.

Umbra cackled.

(I thought he was smart) Solas wailed.

((Book smart)) Umbra giggled.

Searcher hissed, even as his eyes adjusted to the light, it still hurt, but he could see now.

He started to run forwards, summoning a Blue Magic attack.

(Why... just why) Solas cried.  
He slipped forward gathering magic in his version of blue magic.

((I think the stress is getting to him. We could always throw him in the shadows underneath the light for a bit till he reflects?)) Umbra suggested.

He could see the Guardian beginning to use a Blue Magic Attack, but his mind was working in overtime. _'Why would a Guardian need all of these mirrors? Are they a symbol for something... It can't have anything to do with the light being reflected, so it has to be something else. What do mirrors mean? Reflection, looking at yourself, there are a lot of meanings for mirrors in a story... But if the light is not the object that they are suppose to reflect, then what does that leave? The Guardian...'_ He spoke the last part of his thought trail out loud. "...And me..."

He stopped running, before he looked at himself in the mirrors.

Solas paused and stood there calmly.

(Finally) Solas said.  
((Looks like you won't have to throw him into the ever falling shadow underneath til he reflects)) Umbra said.

(Big brother, it needs a shortened name and less lame then the Shadowy underneath) Solas protested as he waited on Searcher.

He didn't even see that the Guardian had stopped.

He just walked over to one of the mirrors, looking at himself.

Solas allowed himself to land, he was no longer floating, and he pulled himself back into his more solid form.

And slowly, he walked across the temple core room, stopping beside Searcher and he waited.

Searcher reached out and he placed his hand on the mirror. "Who do you see Guardian?" He asked. "It feels silly to tell you this, but I feel like I can't trust my own reflection anymore..."

Solas reached out and he tapped the mirror, a soft gentle tone came from it.

"You cannot trust it, because you have forgotten yourself... your inner self." Solas whispered.

"My inner self?"

"Light reflects, Shadows hides, Darkness breaks them all. Shadows hid my temple till conditions were met, but you have not shed your Shadows. And the other Fear remains waiting to break the split multiverses," Solas said backing away, he walked back to his throne and sat down.

"My shadows?" Searcher asked, frowning. "Error..."

"We all have selfish desires, hurts and pains, we all cry, cheer and live. Every being has a counterpart. Some become even more lost then others, falling from light into Shadows in their pains... but if they fall too far, there is no shadows or light." Solas continued.

"But what if you don't have a choice?!" Searcher yelled, he was slowly getting angry, at Fate, at himself and at everyone else. "What if you are forced to become lost and fall down that path?! To do horrible things that you keep blaming yourself for until it reaches the point that you think that it is your fault!!!

That when you close your eyes, you can't block out the screams, their pleas for mercy, your own screams for it to stop, and the screams that force you to keep going!! And you wake up to see the Dust on your hands that you can't get rid off, no matter how you try to wash it off! That you have to keep going or others will die! You feel like a Puppet and you hate yourself and you just want to die! That you forget to eat and to sleep, in the hopes that you can die and finally rest in peace!!!

And yet, people forgive you for what you have done, they still love you and they care for you. They are even willing to help you and protect you from those who would hurt you for what you have done!

And use a name that you feel that you don't deserve anymore because of what you have done! Instead of using the name that you choose to hide behind, unless it's to tell you apart from someone else!

That you can't accept that the actions and that the path that you was forced to walk down was not your fault!!! That you was a victim like the rest of them, being used as a Puppet by someone else....."

Searcher stopped screaming.

It sunk in...

"It wasn't my fault?" Goth asked. "I'm not guilty of the sins running down my spine...."

"It was never the Dust on your hands, the nightmares never should have been yours... love is freely giving and you have nothing to ask forgiveness for," Solas replied softly.

"Goth... do you understand now?"

Goth looked at the Guardian, he was crying, but he nodded his head. "I shouldn't have been running from my problems, everything that I did, I did because I was rejecting myself, I was scared of myself, scared of what I had become.... I should have gone straight home, instead of running as far as I could from it..."

"Now Goth, how does one defeat the Guardian they cannot fight?" Solas asked softly, gently pulling his hood off to reveal his face.

"You don't." Goth smiled. "Because you can't fight yourself, you will only lose if you chose to fight yourself, because no one wins."

(Big brother I'm sorry) Solas whispered,  
((i love you too little light))  
Solas held out his hands, waiting for Searcher to grab them.

Goth smiled, before he walked over to the Guardian, and he hugged him. "Thank you."

"No. Thank you, because without you, Solas wouldn't exist, Solas is tired now, as I've been waiting a very long time... I'm... just... sorry...." Solas whispered, falling forwards, his body vanishing into specks of light.

 _"That Big Brother will be alone now..."_ His voice echoed in the air, Solas was now gone.

The final braziers around the throne were lit, the flames were shadowy in color, with specks of beautiful white veins in the flames.

For the first time in Eons, a Soul shard returned home.

Goth started to cry again, even as he hugged himself. Reaper floated over to him, hugging his son.

"It's not fair, Solas was just a kid." Goth sobbed into his Dad's shoulder. "He was just a kid.... Mine... Fate took a shard of my Soul when she took me, and it was used to make him. He may have been a clone, but he was my kid at the same time...."

Reaper just hugged his son tighter.

Goth sniffed and he wiped away his tears after he had cried for several minutes. He had to keep going. "Dad... I know how to end this... I know where to find what that Skeleton wanted."

A whisper of sound was heard, the soft sound of footwear on sand.

Goth turned around, not even seeing the golden speckles that appeared in his white eyelight.

"Who's there?"

"Little Solas was a very happy being, he lived a very long time being loved. There are no regrets, so sorrows. Do not cry, just promise me that you remember Solas for me," Umbra said quietly, he hated the fact only now could he leave his post.

Goth just smiled, before he pulled out his Soul, the little golden piece was happily bouncing around. "I won't have a problem with that."

"Then finish the temple Goth, make sure my little brother task is not unfinished," Umbra said his golden eyelights going red with determination.

Then he was gone, the only proof he was there was the marks on the sand.

Goth smiled, before he turned around again, walking towards the throne. He knelt down, before he gently pressed on the white dot in the black part of the yin-yang symbol.

The symbol opened, to reveal a Key Piece.

In outertale it began to rain, for some reason people wondered why it felt like tears.

Goth carefully picked up the Key Piece, he was crying too. "Dad, do you remember that Door in Reapertale? The one door that no one could open?"

"Yes... it annoys Asgore greatly." Reaper said, and anything that annoyed Asgore was fine in his book.

"Guess where Fate put Ink's Soul after she took it from him?" Goth asked.

"Or rather, where Solas hid Ink's Soul after Umbra gave it to him once he got it from Fate..."

The temple shook suddenly in horrid wind, and wailed like a lost soul.

Or Grief.

Umbra wailed in grief in his void core, he was alone.

And Fate had still not freed him.


	30. Chapter Twenty-Six: When Gods Fall

Umbra lay on his bed fully dressed.

He saw no reason to undress and crawl under the covers, he was alone again.

Solas was gone...

Back to the soul he belonged to.

If anything remained of his little light he didn't know.

He could talk to his other self Shades, but that was literally just talking to himself the original aspect and the aspect of Error slept having no reason to wake.

"Will I be free soon Fates?" he asked his voice dead.

_We will be see_

He lay there tears coming down his face.

He wanted to go home.

To his family, to Palette, to Searcher, to Nightmare and the gang.

He wanted to hug his siblings as Shades again, he wanted to meet his parents as Umbra and know them as Umbra too...

Not just the random encounters in the past.

His soul hurt when he found Solas Kitty puppet.

Sobbing quietly he fell asleep.

OoOoO

Umbra woke with a start, slowly he stat up.

"For a moment... I thought I felt Solas... what a dream," he said bitterly.

He climbed off the bed and cleaned up, while he wasn't allowed to interfere with anything he could still wonder about,

Moments later the void core was empty.

OoOoO

"Oh... this place..." Umbra said, in his wondering he'd come to the Fire temple.

"This place looked ruined," a voice said, turning he saw a robed figure wondering the ruined temple.

' _And a ghost too'_ he thought amused, seeing something flickering into his visible range then out.

He felt a nudge from the nicer Fate.

"Hello Traveller," he greeted, the information of this monster given to him by fate.

"Oh.. ah..." the monster said turning, a single purple eyelight looked up at him the other hidden by an eyepatch.

"I'm Umbra," he told him.

"Traveller" he said "did you know time around your multiverse is really weird"

"There was a time loop involved," he explained.

"That explains it, I think I met two people from this weird split multiverse at the library so I was a bit curious," Traveller explained.

"Just be careful when you leave, or you'll end up in the wrong time outside this multiverse. Its best you go, things are getting to there conclusion," he told the Traveller.

"Probably best, the codes don't fit our code enough for us to stay long," Traveller said.

"Good luck traveller," Umbra said.

"Hopefully I don't end in that weird sinverse again," Traveller muttered, and vanished.

"Sinverse..." Umbra said with a strange look on his face.

The Fates cackled.

"Whyyyyyyyyy..." he cried.

Good fate giggled.

"Do you want to know what the main pairing is?" The meaner Fate suddenly asked him.

"No! I don't!" Umbra screamed. He did not want to know that!

"It's one, big poly pairing between you, Searcher and your Palettes." The meaner Fate said.

"Who came up with that?!" Umbra screamed.

"Those two." The nicer Fate pointed towards a giggling hedgehog made out of Fire and a Temmie with a huge blush on her face.

Umbra made a cry of rage, as the fates and the two admins vanished.

It was too late, they'd done it.. stupid rule 34.

OoOoO

Something was happening.

Umbra walked in between to where it was happening.

"Reapertale? He asked.

_Watch...._

Umbra frowned and headed to Reapertale, But not before slipping Solas Kitty Puppet inside his jacket.

OoOoO

'Searcher?' Umbra thought walking into a much to empty Reapertale.

There was Reaper and Searcher.

'Ah.. going for the soul' he thought with relief.

He wished he could help, but he was to watch out of phase with the multiverse.

"Good luck..." he whispered.

OoOoO

"Goth, I'm going to use a Gaster Blaster to give you a running head start." Reaper told him. "You need to hit the ground running, and don't look back. The Door should be at the end of the corridor, you can't miss it."

Goth nodded his head as he hopped onto the Gaster Blaster.

Umbra couldn't help but snort, there was something hilarious about this confrontation with Asgore.

He tilted his head and smiled, Fate allowed it this time.

Gently he touched Reaper, then walked away to follow Searcher.

He wondered how Fears Toy Asgore would react with Reaper immune to the gems and a shadow shield.

He cackled a bit.

Anything to ruin either Fears plans.

That and he never liked this Asgore anyway.

OoOoO

Umbra walked calmly behind Searcher, keeping up even though the taller skeleton was running.

He wondered how Searcher would react to the fact that Fates 'dog' was dogging him.

He giggled a bit.

Searcher skidded to a stop in front of a door. It was huge.

His eyelight was wide as he took in the carvings on the door. They were beautiful.

It was all of the Guardians, apart from Solas, circling what looked like a lock, high in the door.

The scenes with the Guardians in looked like that they used to have paint on them, and at the top of it, Goth saw the Light Temple, surrounded by a cage of shadow.

Umbra smiled, remembering helping Solas design it.

"Solas, you were the one to make all of the carvings that I have been studying..." _"_

_"Solas..." Umbra said in surprise._

"WHAT?!" Searcher suddenly yelled.

"Um... oh dear.. did he get Solas memory too," Umbra said guiltily.

"Did it just get cold in here.. how does that work?" Umbra asked looking around, he wasn't even phased into reality where he could have temperature.

Goth floated up to the lock, removing the Key Pieces from his inventory. There was only three of them in the lock right now.

"And all that I need to do now is to put the rest of them in." Goth said, before he placed the Earth, Fire and Light Temple's Key Pieces into the Lock. "But why does the Lock have six pieces when only five Temples were built?"

Goth nodded his head, before he started to press the Key Pieces.

He was so screwed... Searcher definitely had access to Solas memories.

"Earth. Forest. Fire. Ice. Light. Shadow." He mumbled and each Key Piece that he pressed, lit up with the same colours as the flames in the braziers at the Light Temple.

Maybe if he sand an immortal Cat it would distract him when Ser came after him, Ser liked cats after all.

Goth floated back down to the ground as the door opened.

He gasped at what he saw.

"Welcome to the Vault, we serve souls of the innocent. Have a bagel.. no make it to bagels," Umbra muttered to himself.

It was an entire Japanese shrine, with cherry blossom trees in every colour of the rainbow. His breath was taken away by the beauty of this place.

"So many memories here," Umbra whispered walking into the vault, remembering drinking tea with Solas under that tree.

The door closed behind Goth as he walked into the vault.

"Don't worry Solas, I will make sure that you can drink tea with Umbra underneath that tree again." Goth said.

Umbra froze and turned to look at Searcher.

"Solas is aware!" he said happily, he blinked tears away before they could fall.

He'd been afraid only memories would remain.

"Thank goodness," he whispered.

"I wonder if we can do that body swap thing that Cross and his Chara do?" Goth asked Solas.

Goth closed his eyes and he focused on Solas.

Umbra watched in hope.

There was a sudden poof of smoke and a giggle came from it.

Solas burst out of the smoke laughing, with his new gold scarf following him.

Umbra gave a ragged cry, he still couldn't interfere.

"My little one, my little light..." Umbra whispered tearfully.

Then he had an idea, would Fate mind this?

Gently he placed Solas kitty Puppet under there sacred tree, allowing it to phase back into reality.

He winced as the sudden migraine from the nastier Fate, but that was a mild punishment.

Solas looked towards their sacred tree, only to squeal in delight. "Kitty!" He yelled, running towards the tree so that he could pick up his Kitty Puppet.

"Solas is sorry that Solas left you behind!" He hugged it.

"Mama is the reason why Solas loves Kitties!"

Solas giggled before he made his way to the deeper parts of the shrine and if Kitty was here, that meant that Big Brother was here too.

"I almost forgot I left it here, not wanting it damaged as time looped and someone might spot it.. like your Geno," Umbra sighed, seeing Solas looking at the Jade pendent.

Solas picked up the pendent. "Umbra, it's time for you to come home." He said.

Goth placed his hands over Solas's. _"He's right Shades, please, come back. We made a promise to go home, together... "_

"I heard... Searcher too," he said in surprise.

"Its okay..."

Umbra blinked, usually the aspect that was Shades slept.

He grinned.

Good Fate smiled.

Gently he placed his hands on top of Solas, feeling something unravelling.

Slowly he felt himself being pulled back into phase of reality.

"BIG BROTHER!!" Solas screamed, before he hugged Umbra, crying. "Don't leave Solas again!"

"Sorry Solas, but you're not allowed to leave me too." Umbra said, gently hugging the tiny child.

Goth smiled. He was so happy

"Just.. how long have you been planning that to release me?" He asked, curiously, he knew that Solas was a rather sneaky child.. and he could be a Hell Child when he was alone.

He'd seen the side effects of Solas being alone for too long.

Solas smirked. "Solas has been planning this since the last time that Big Brother got sick."

"Wait.. were you the cause of FellMertale going missing during that time.. Wait... I don't want to know. Just no!" Umbra said suddenly.

Solas giggled, before he smiled, innocently, whistling.

 _"FellMertale?"_ Goth asked.

"Nope... just no, I am not discussing that AU... that.. gah..." Umbra shuddered.

Shades laughed.

Searcher frowned. _"Shades?"_

"Umbra... were free, let me finally meet Solas..." Shades whispered, happy that everyone could hear everyone while touching the Jade.

Unlike Solas who seemed to Poof, Umbra seemed to melt into a swirl of Shadows that reformed into Shades.

Shades, who still wore the clothing he'd been wearing when he vanished.

"Hello Ser, Hello Solas finally glad to meet you?" Shades said with a tired grin.

"Hi!" Solas giggled, before he yawned.

"Try to stay awake Solas, Unlike Umbra I'm not big enough to pick you up and hide you in his jacket," Shades giggled "I'm not even sure if you knew about me since Fate kept Umbra from mentioning me."

Solas smiled. "Big Brother and Solas did keep an eye on you two as you grew up."

"And you did rest in Umbras soul for many years, which is also my soul... so I shouldn't be surprised," Shades replied "Even if Fate changed by soul so no one would recognize it."

Solas nodded his head. "Mama needs to get the Paint Idiot's Soul now."

"Yes, that means you need to let Searcher out now little Light," Shades whispered.. or rather Umbra said through Shades, Shades eyelight was a familiar gold.

"Okay!" Solas said, before he poofed again.

Searcher stepped out of the smoke, smiling at Shades.

"Hello my other self," Shades grins, his eyelight back to purple with only specks of gold.

Searcher grinned, his own eyelight had golden speckles in it as well. "I missed you." He was quick to pull Shades into a hug.

"Are you ready, I got all of my Inky's soul and essence. I do not recommend the trip, through time that is with no return ticket. Zero out of five stars," Shades responded.

Searcher laughed as he let Shades go. "Yeah. I can't wait to go home."

"Er... sorry about the temples and Guardians," he coughed, not that the Fates gave him any choice on building them.

"I am still mad about that." Searcher told him, but Shades would tell that his demons weren't bothering Searcher anymore.

"At least you didn't have to fight them and then find out you created Fates Guardians and temples. Umbra was not pleased to sneak into fears temples to place the keys," Shades grumbled, his magic blazing but not its normal purple but beautiful gold. He hadn't been kidding when he said Fate changed his soul, if anyone checked his soul they would find it gold.. an ethereal gold color not found in souls. It was the same reason Solas shard of soul was gold, for he had been in his soul for years.  
It was very likely Solas soul would pale and soon match Sers soul.

Searcher just smiled, before he opened the inner doors of the shrine to see his Ink's Soul.

"Come on Ink." He pulled out a Soul container that he placed Ink's Soul into. "It's time for you to go home."

He winced, before he brought out his own Soul, which was suddenly turning a very bright white that looked like light itself, with Solas's golden shard happily dancing around it.

Shades laughed, or rather Umbra through Shades laughed.

"Well, the Fates do have to keep us balanced," he said summoning his own own soul to show its ethereal gold self.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

"Want me to get back to where your Dad is the fast way? Solas never bothered to learn to travel by light as I did Shadows?" Umbra via Shades offered returning there soul inside.

Goth suddenly gasped and he fell to his knees.

"Searcher?" Umbra said still through Shades form.

"Dad... He is calling for me. A Judgement is to be passed." A hint of otherworldliness leaked into Goth's form, mainly in the faint echo that was laced in his voice.

"Right, I offered to shadow travel you there... so lets go," Umbra asked putting a hand out, his form shifted to Umbras form again.

Goth silently took Umbra's hand.

Usually Umbra just travelled via the void, but he didn't want to hurt his friend. Shadow swallowed them, and when it cleared he found themselves by Reaper.

"Sorry we're late, traffic was a killer," Umbra grinned, and for once Fate couldn't force him to watch.

Karmatic Death reached out, letting go of Umbra's hand as he took the free hand of the elder Death.

Asgore gasped, this was impossible, Death's half breed freak was here?! How?!

The Sealed Gems rattled again, before they shattered.

Judge and Painless joined Death and Karmatic, and each one of them had an otherworldly feel to them....

Wings burst out of Painless and Karmatic's back, joining Death's wings.

Karmatic's were still fluffly, it was clear that the Youngest Death had not reached the age where his wings would naturally emerge.

The Judge towered over all three of them.

 **"ASGORE KING OF THE GODS, YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY..."** The Judge's voice was a whisper that echoed.

"Of what crimes?!" Asgore yelled.

 **"UMBRA, FRIEND, LIST HIS CRIMES..."** Karmatic mumbled.

" _The unjust punishments of Innocents, sacrilege_ _of your duties. Following the one that seeks the end, trapping the gatekeepers of the end... the list does go on much longer"_ Umbra whispered, but his voice was different... apparently Fate was stepping in. _"We have watched you for a very long time Fallen king of the gods, but now you sought even what Gods cannot have."_

 **"YOU TRIED TO KILL ME WHEN I WAS A CHILD.... YOU HELPED HE WHO STARTED THE CYCLE THAT LEAD TO ME BECOMING A FORCED DESTROYER..... YOU BETRAYED US, ABUSED YOUR POWER..."** Karmatic continued.

 **"OVERRULED JUDGEMENTS ON CORRUPT SOULS.... IGNORED CRIES OF HELP..."** Painless stepped in.

 **"YOU HAVE BROKEN SO MANY LAWS. OF LIFE AND DEATH."** Death's eye lit up.

"It was my right!" Asgore yelled. "For so long, I have watched that paint user take what was rightfully mine! I am the King of the Gods! This Multiverse should be worshipping me, praising me, not him."

Umbra broke out laughing. It was not a kind laugh and it was definitely not his laugh.

" _You should be begging little goat, for your path leads to absolution of the soul_ ," he said, or rather the nastier Fate said.

'Should have stayed in my real body' Shade thought, as his other self even Free now was still built from the Fates power.

 **"YOUR FATE HAS BEEN DECIDED... ABSOLUTION."** The Judge whispered, even as Asgore bellowed and he rushed forwards to stop the Judgement.

But he couldn't move, it was like his own Magic was rebelling against him....

The Judge grinned, even as the floor split apart to reveal an Ancient looking scythe.

**"THE SCYTHE OF ABSOLUTION."**

" _Pray little Goat, you pissed off Both Fates. And now your soul will cease to be in any sense,"_ Fate smirked.

The Scythe followed over to the Deaths, as if it was choosing who would wield it... It hovered to a stop between Death and Karmatic.

Death seemed to know what it wanted, because he reached out with his and Karmatic's joined hands...

_'Dad...'_

_'It's okay Goth, just follow my lead.'_

They grabbed the scythe together before they swung it back.

The blade seemed to be made out of rusted metal, but light started to shine from it and the rust peeled itself away, to reveal a metal that was just as dark as the Void...

They swung it down, right into Asgore's Soul...

Umbra shivered and fell to the ground as the Fates released there hold on his body, he winces as he heard the soul scream.

Then there was silence.

There was no cracking or dusting soul.

It was just gone as if it had never been there.

"My head hurts," Umbra moaned, and he felt ill... after all while his body was there strongest creation he couldn't contains any spark of either Fates long.

The otherworldliness seemed to just slip away from the Deaths and the Judge as all four of them collapsed.

Grim held a hand to his head, even as he put his wings away, helping the Judge back onto his feet. "What happened?" He asked.

"It was an Absolution Pap." Reaper said, watching as Goth's silver wings faded away and the floor reclaimed the scythe that they had used on the King. "Asgore went too far, and he paid for it."

Goth groaned, his Dad, and the Magic that he was giving him, was the only thing keeping him awake.

"Okay Brother." Grim said, not really realising what he just said. "Wait... BROTHER!"

He was quick to hug Reaper, not really realising that he was hugging Goth too. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU LAZY BONES?! GENO HAS BEEN WORRIED ABOUT YOU SINCE YOU DISAPPEARED WHILE WE WAS ON DUTY!!"

Umbra giggled, Grim was awesome in either version of this screwed up multiverse.  
"Blame Fate for it," he said weakly from the pain raging in his skull, he learned over and touched each of them giving them a boost of energy.

"Don't you mean Fear?" Goth asked. "He was the one to kidnap Dad..."

Grim then chose that moment to notice that he was hugging two skeletons.

"GOTH!" He put Reaper down so he could hug his nephew. "YOU'RE OKAY! WE WAS SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU!"

"Ack! Uncle Grim, you're crushing my ribs!" Goth yelled.

"Pap, put him down, I don't want to be the one to tell Geno why we had to take Goth to a Healer right after we got him back!"

"Fate.. fear.. same thing in the end, let me dis Fate a little Searcher. I'm mostly free now.. other then probably fixing some codes here's and there," Umbra sniffed glaring. "Also.. your all a bit loud and this migraine is probably about to knock me out."

Goth was still trying to get away from his rather happy Uncle, he was waving his arms around and everything. He even had a sign above his head with the words, 'Help me!' on it!

A gentle white paw came to rest on Umbra's head, with the soft glow of Healing Magic, and Umbra looked up to see Life.

"Thanks... its gone from pass out to give me tylanol... which is the best we can hope for," he told the life goddess with a grin.

He snorted taking in the family chaos, shadow covered Ser briefly and he reappeared beside Umbra.

"Oh, it's nothing Dear One." Life said, even as Goth gasped for air. "And Goth, it's lovely to see that you are awake now."

"Aunt Life?" Goth asked. "How..."

"Your Mother, he kidnapped me so that you could get treatment for your wounds, and your Counterpart explained everything to me Young Man. We will be talking about the missed food and sleep when this mess is over."

The shadowy guardian snickered.  
"Moon chocolate?" he asked holding out a bar to life, Life was always awesome in his books.

"Thank you." Life took the chocolate. "You are a kind one, your parents must be proud of you."

Goth grumbled, even as a ghostly Solas appeared next to him, giggling.

"You know, Life can probably see Solas..." Umbra pointed out, as Life needed Light to grow. If shades was doing a ghost job, Life would probably see him too. He wondered for how long he'd be able to hear and see Solas like this.

"He's snuck as my version of Cross's Chara now, he's not going anywhere." Goth muttered, even as Solas hovered over to Life.

_"Hi Miss Life!"_

"And who is this Sweet One?" Life asked.

_"Solas!"_

"Mind if Shades take over here, I need to rest," Umbra asked... Life may have healed him but Fate possessing anyone would exhaust anyone... well it would kill anyone else.

"Go ahead."

Shadows gathered and shifted, and a tired looking Shades was sitting on the ground.  
"Oh good, no pain in my form," He grinned.

Life smiled. "Hello Shades."

Reaper floated over to them. "So, you're Shades..."

"Its very nice to meet you both," he said "Properly and as myself."  
He had quiet a few run ins with Reaper in the past as Umbra, and might have traded teas with Life a few time.

Reaper just grinned and he picked up the smaller Goth, before he picked his Beanpole son up. "Alright, these two kinda have somewhere to be, we do need to knock Ink's Soul back into him.

Goth snickered.

"I might have to grab the other Ink, he might still be grounded," Shades said coughing a bit, he had been about to release him when he'd started going creative mode again.


	31. Chapter Twenty-Seven: Abyssal

Two figures walked down a hallway, their footsteps tapping on the black marble floor and polished obsidian walls. The only lights were the golden like runes on the ceiling. The doors that they passed were made out of black metal, but where they went, only the first figure knew.

This was a hallway made in the fragments between realities, hidden between the void and anti-void. It crossed both sides of the split Multiverse, and it was where Umbra's Vaults were.

Some vaults contained priceless gold, and others contained information and the codes of the surrounding Multiverses. There were a few that Umbra would show no one, not even Solas or Searcher, because they contained things so dangerous that Fate commanded them to be sealed.

Yet where Umbra was going, was not to a Vault, but to a place where two sealed rooms lay.

Each room was where he would place the Ink's when they were grounded.

Not that anyone would be able to find the hidden rooms without him, as this was just one of the thousands of hallways in this place.

It was a twisting maze that even gave him trouble sometimes. There was one white hallway in the entire network, the one that he would not go to, unless he was called.

That was a hallway that led to an audience chamber for Fate.

And while he was no longer truly bound to Fate as the Final Guardian of Shadows, he knew he still had a duty to safeguard this ever growing network.

As they went around a corner, he caught sight of Searcher, who had wanted to see the place Ink feared because of his groundings.

He had asked if Searcher and Solas had wanted to come with him, and they had agreed.

But sadly, Searcher had to be in control, as the shadows where too strong for Solas to even appear as a ghost here.

He hoped that it would be the final time that he went to this place, and if everything worked, his duty as the Error and Destroyer would be over.

He had no idea how he'd kill off the Error, to make people stop seeking that alter ego.

"This is the room." Umbra said, turning towards his other self.

"It's a shame that Dad had to go and quickly catch up on his Reaping Duties." Searcher had his hands behind his head, his Dad had dropped them off at the closest AU to the Void Core before he had to go and reap some stray Souls. "But still, I can't believe that we are so close to the end of this journey..."

"True, I cannot wait to go home... I am very tired of being Umbra all the time and I wish to sleep, and unless its an emergency, I doubt that you'll see this version of myself." Umbra replied, he turned back to the door and he ran a hand down its center. Glowing runes appeared and the door gave a click.

With a yawn, Umbra pushed the door open, and the room beyond it was revealed to be a very nice medium size room, with beige walls, with a open kitchen, and a door that led to a bathroom. There was a bed with a multi colored bed set, and a bookcase full of books.

But what caught one's attention was the super long desk and black desk chair, and sitting on the chair, facing away from them, was the Ink of Shades's Multiverse, filing what looked like an endless amount of paperwork.

Searcher snickered, before he burst out into laughter, leaning against the doorway.

This caught the Ink's attention.

"Umbra, is it over?" He asked hopefully.

"Yup, let's get you home kiddo." Umbra said, with his smirk hidden behind his scarf.

Ink, amusingly, began to dance.

"Please tell me that my Ink has to do paperwork as well..." Searcher giggled, but he had no idea of the Boss Battle that his Ink was currently fighting in...

"The door across the hallway, it's currently unlocked." Umbra giggled.

He sniggered, before he went to check out his Ink's room.

Umbra snickered a bit, they had time... the Inks's always took a while with their dances of escape. Searcher's laughter could be heard from his Ink's room.

"He has more paperwork then my Dad!"

"It's the pages that they are supposed to fill out for Fate every time that they create, fix AUs.... etc... but with no Soul they never remembered to fill it... so there is a backlog. You should have seen it before I started grounding them and once they have their souls back, Fate will just dump the work on them, to do it properly and not just in here." Umbra said quietly.

Searcher giggled again, and once the Inks's did have their Souls back, hello vacation, for him and Shades.

"Well, let's get this idiot back home, and then, we can decide on how to give them their souls back." Umbra said, walking towards Ink, who was still in his own little world.

"I wanna shove mine down his throat..."

Umbra giggled, and then, he blinked.

"Something's going on with your Ink, some type of battle... I'll push the Ink here back home through a portal, and thankfully, while I can't shortcut in here. I can use a portal and shortcuts to get out." Umbra said, and he literally shoved his Ink through a shadowy portal home.

Searcher frowned. "Where is this battle?"

Umbra didn't answer and he summoned another Portal, and then, he walked through it, leaving it open behind him.

Searcher ran into the portal.

OoOoO

"What the fuck...." Searcher whispered when they saw the goopy thing in Outertale.

"Language!" Geno yelled, even as Ink dodged another attack, with Seeker clinging to him like a sloth, before he dumped some of his acidic red paint on it.

The creature had several of Dream's arrows stuck within it, and Nightmare was leaving several weeping slashes and stab wounds within it's arms.

"That's definitely one of Fear's golems...." Umbra muttered.

"Mom?!" Searcher yelled. "What are you doing here?"

Geno teleported over to his oldest child, before he smacked him on the head. "Get in that fight right now Goth!"

"Yes Mom...."

Umbra giggled a bit, and since Fate could no longer force him to watch, he created several shadow barriers to stop the Golem from getting away. He muttered a spell under his breath and he tossed it at the same time his barriers formed, and jagged ice froze half of the ooze.

"I need to improve my ice spells, but light spell are stronger against his Golem... But are they not easy to use. It's too bad that Solas never wanted to learn ice spells... snow yes..." Umbra muttered to himself.

"Do you just say that you needed Light spells?" Searcher asked.

"This is an abyssal Golem type, the ooze is weak against light spells. I know one spell... Ice, which I suck at. Solas doesn't know Ice spells, but he does know a lot more light spells..." Umbra pouted, never admitting he only learned Ice spells because Solas wanted to see if his big brother could build an ice palace like the one in Frozen.

"Mom! I'll be back in a bit!" Searcher yelled, before he poofed, causing Geno to shriek in distress.

"Hi Grandma!" Solas jumped out of the smoke to hug Geno.

"Solas sweetie... Grandma can play later... once he understands what's going on." Umbra said, throwing ice lances at the golem.

"Okay!" Solas smiled, before he let go of Geno, who had crashed.

The tiny Guardian giggled before he summoned several light lances that he threw at the Golem.

Ink was the first one to notice them.

"U-U-Umbra?"

"Yo Kiddo, guess who is allowed to interfere now." Umbra said with a wicked grin. "You remember Solas right, my cute little brother, who if anyone ever hurts, will be doomed to the void because of their crimes?"

There was a lovely silence at that.

Even the Abyssal Golem was silent.

"Solas here, as adorable as he is, can use Light spells, which that thing is weak to.. try to keep out of the way..." Umbra continued, projecting the 'Bro con' vibe of doom.

Solas giggled, even as Seeker scooped him up into a hug. "Oh my stars, he's adorable!"

Umbra coughed, looking at Seeker, and then, the battle.

"Palette. Put the kid down." Dream told his son.

Umbra's Shadow aura began to show wisps of red, he didn't share Solas well. Solas pouted.

_'Mama! Your Seeker won't put me down!'_

_'Give me five seconds...'_ Searcher said, before he floated over to Palette and he pulled out his hat from his inventory.

Palette was staring at the floating hat. "No! My hat!" He put Solas down so that he could run after his hat. Umbra happily snatched up Solas, totally ignoring the ghostly Searcher with the hat.

"Well Little Light, shall we join the battle?" Umbra said, his aura normal again, he even had his shadow like wings summoned, in case Solas wanted to attack from the air.

Sure, Solas could summon light wings, but the counterparts were more comfy together.

He swore that he heard Shades facepalm in their head.

"Yep!" Solas giggled, even as Nightmare used his extra limbs to slice one of the arms like sushi.

Umbra spread his wings and they became more solid like, with swirls of gold hidden inside them, and a few seconds later, he was in the air, and above the golem.

"Fire away little one." Umbra cackled.

He might be still a bit over stressed, and the pain from the Fates using his body as an avatar had returned once Shades changed into himself again. At least it was slightly better then before, it was too bad that Life hadn't been able to heal all of it.

'Once this is over, vacation here we come.' He thought.

Solas giggled, even as Dream and Ink returned to the fight, and Mama was distracting his Seeker, summoning the light that he needed for his strongest spell.

The young guardian's eyes were closed, even as the light built up around the Golem.

"Almost there..." Umbra told Solas.

Solas hummed, as the light started to crackle, a warning for everyone to get away from the Golem, who had switched from attacking Ink and the others, to attacking Umbra and Solas.

Umbra smirked, and shadowy whips edged with ice came out of the earth and began to impale the Golem.

"It's too bad that you're a Golem, Earth is both shadow and light magic... but it's useless against Golems." He scowled.

He was pretty sure that Searcher's Ink still had nightmares from the last time he tried to resist being grounded, there was no escape from the earth.

He heh heh....

Dream slowly backed away from the Golem, he could sense the power in the light, dragging Ink with him and Nightmare followed them.

Solas opened his eyes to reveal that they were endless voids, he whispered a single word and the light reacted.

Various light constructs of the Temple Guardians before him appeared, rushing at the Golem, tearing it apart, as the gathered light exploded.

"Hmm.. think it's done?" Umbra asked thoughtfully.

' _Stop jinxing things!'_ Shades yelled.

' _Sorry.'_ Umbra thought back, giggling.

The explosion of the light sent shockwaves throughout Outertale, healing wounds, rebooting Geno and even removing the goo from Nightmare's bones.

The healing light was so strong that several of Nightmare's old wounds was healed.

But Searcher found himself being pulled back to Solas, dropping Seeker's hat back on his head. 'Solas?'

_'Tired Mama. Solas wants to sleep.'_

_'Yeah... I think that all of us need a good rest.'_

_'Stay awake for now Solas, it's a bit easier for Umbra to carry you, then for him to carry Ser.'_ Shades said, butting in.

 _'I can try! I'll just put him in my jacket.'_ Umbra teased, glad that they all could hear each other while they were this close together.

Gently, Umbra landed by Geno, waiting for the Golem's remains to be revealed.

At this point, they just had to destroy it's core.

"Brother!" Dream yelled, hugging Nightmare.

"Gah! Get off of me Dream!"

Geno shook his head, even as the smoke cleared to reveal the Golem's remains, several holes had been blasted into it, and in the middle of it's chest, a bright light shone, tainted with fear.

Umbra put Solas down and he walked over to the Golem, he leaned over it and he pulled out a grey orb that was glowing yellow.

"It's strange just how much trouble a small bauble can cause." He said, and he clenched his fist, shattering the core. Dirty power slipped between his fingers, fading away before it hit the ground. The Golem's remains became powder, the powder vanishing between one second and another.

"Big Brother, what about Fear? Where is he?" Solas asked.

"Does anyone want to answer that?" Umbra asked, walking back to Solas, he gently rubbed Solas head.

Geno whistled, looking innocent, but the smug grin on his face told everyone everything.

Umbra crackled.

Seeker ran back over to them. "Mr.Geno, did you really have to do that to my kidnapper? He's Dust now..."

"He set the chain of events up that led to Gothy being taken..." Geno brushed off a bit of Dust from his knuckles.

"What?!" Dream yelled.

' _Mom's hardcore, no matter what Multiverse he is in.'_ Shades giggled and Umbra nodded his head, he hoped that his Fear could be defeated this easily.

"Solas... you're tired, I'm pretty sure Ser wants to see his mother." Umbra said gently, with a smile, one that only Solas usually got to see.

"Okay...." There was a small poof and a lanky beanpole skeleton walked out of the smoke.

"Gothy!" Seeker yelled, before he tackled the beanpole, nuzzling him.

"Palette!" Searcher wrapped Seeker up in a hug. "You're okay, thank the stars, you're okay..."

"Goth?" Dream asked, even as Palette returned the hug. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me, who else could it be?" Goth asked.

Spotting a tree nearby, Umbra went over and he sat down in it's shade.

It was probably for the best if he didn't become Shades right now, their was enough confusion with Solas running around.

This was better then watching it out of phase, Shades snorted when he summoned extra buttery popcorn.

Geno just smiled and he rubbed Goth's head, right before a shadow formed behind him.

He turned around in time to see Reaper appear. "R-Reaper?"

"Hi Gen!"

"You go missing for several weeks and the first thing that you say to me is "Hi Gen!" instead of explaining what happened?!" Geno yelled.

"Gen..." Reaper slowly backed away. His waifu was getting angry.....

"GET BACK HERE!" Geno yelled, running after Reaper the moment that his husband started to run.


	32. Chapter Twenty-Eight: Talks

Umbra had long ago lost interest in what was going on around himself, the reaper-Geno chase had ended awhile ago. The Reaper was clutching his mate like a lifeline, and said mate had Ser in their grasp.

He flipped to the next page.

Sooner or later, Searcher and Shades would get their chance to talk on how to return the Ink's souls properly.

A bone brow was raised and he snickered, when Seeker blushed at something that Ser had said.

\-----

Goth couldn't help but to snicker at the blush on Palette's face.

"I'm so confused." Ink said.

Umbra flipped to another page and he yawned.

"About what Dad?" Palette asked.

"EVERYTHING!" Ink yelled.

"Paperwork." Umbra coughed out.

Ink whimpered while Goth laughed.

"Paperwork?" Dream asked, he was confused, while Nightmare and Reaper just chuckled.

"Well, when Umbra grounds Ink, he makes him do the backlog of Paperwork that he didn't fill in when he created a new AU." Goth laughed.

"Ask me no questions, and I shall tell no lies." Umbra said wickedly.

"So, has anyone seen Error?" Dream asked.

"Palette said that he took a bullet for him and he fell..." Goth had to suppress the urge to tell Dream the truth, but as much as he wanted to, it was possibly for the best that nearly everyone believed that the Destroyer was dead.

Ink's eyelights changed into panic symbols and he sprinted towards where the bridge had been. "ERROR!"

Reaper and Geno tightened their grip on their son, he may have been the Error at the time, but Goth had been shot!

Sighing, Umbra stood up, shoving his book into his jacket.

Slowly, he walked over and be stopped beside Ink, and down below them, was an an endless void.

"You will have to say goodbye." Umbra told the Creator. "Error is gone now."

"He can't be gone!" Ink yelled. "He just can't.... He was the only constant thing that I had, apart from my vials and Broomie!

I mean, sure, I hurt him, but he was trying to destroy my creations and cause trouble, but he was reliable, I knew that he could always be there and I could trust him to be the one thing that could never change, to be something that I could hold onto when my memory failed me...."

"Do you really hate him that much?" Umbra asked sharply, with his eyelights briefly flaring red.

"I don't know..." Ink whispered. "I knew that he could be a good person, deep down inside, but every time that I tried, he wouldn't open up to me.... But he was there, he was always there...

What am I going to do now?"

"Error is gone, he was tired, so tired. His essence and Soul didn't even make it to the Void, he finally passed on to his final rest." Umbra said quietly.

He stood there, quietly, for a moment.

"What you can do now, is live. Live for today, and tomorrow, and do your duty. That is all anyone can do." Umbra replied.

"But, he's not gone." Goth walked over to Ink, having escaped his parents. "He's here." He pointed to Ink's head. "And here too." He then pointed at Ink's scarf. "Don't forget him Ink, besides, I never got to say 'Thank you' to him..."

"Why?" Ink asked. Goth winked at Umbra. "Well, the guy who kidnapped Palette, was the Boss of those Minions that you guys fought."

"How do you know this Goth?" Dream asked.

"Because that guy kidnapped me too, but it was Error who saved me, but when he did, those minions had almost Dusted me...

I don't know what he did, but he saved my life, but it came with a price." Goth sighed as he summoned his strings, before he dismissed them. "He then told me something interesting. You see, he could hear voices in the Anti-Void, and they told him something interesting..."

"Those guys never stop talking." Umbra snorted.

"They told him that he was never meant to exist, until something happened in another Multiverse, which affected you."

"And Error never wanted to exist." Umbra said quietly.

"And Fate had to Reset everything, in both Multiverses." Ink would understand what he was talking about when he got his Soul back. "You see, the Ink in the other Multiverse, his Soul was stolen by the Counterpart of the guy who kidnapped me and Palette."

"That other Multiverse... you could say is this Multiverse's other half, what happens in one can effect the other." Umbra said.

"And if one of them is destroyed, the other one is destroyed too, now, Fate is actually your Mom, and something happened to spilt her into two, and we got the Yandere side, who wanted to protect you at all costs, because a part of her remembered the other Ink losing his Soul.

So, she stole your Soul and she hid it somewhere." Goth explained.

"What?" Ink whispered.

"You have a soul kiddo." Umbra sighed.

"A Soul?" Ink asked, in shock, mainly because, all this time, he had believed that he was Soulless, but to find out that he originally had a Soul...

"Now, Error had an idea, now that he knew that the Counterpart of the one responsible for this mess was active again, he didn't know how strong Fate's defences were." Goth continued to explain, making up a few lies on the spot, to add to the truth that he was telling. "And he couldn't leave the Anti-Void, or Destruction, long enough to check them out for himself, however, both of us knew that it wasn't safe enough for me to go home, we had no idea why he took me, and if I went home, if it would happen again.

And I couldn't stay in the Anti-Void for too long, so Error asked me to do some research and to find out what Fate did to protect your Soul."

"You scared the pants off your counterpart, by the way, when you popped up." Umbra giggled.

"Really?" Goth asked, while Dream stared at him.

"You're the Source that my Brother was talking about!" The Golden Twin yelled.

"Source?" Umbra asked, curiously.

"I noticed that something was wrong when Skeletons kept on going missing." Dream said. "And because of how Pally was born, because Palette was born with a Full Soul, instead of a Half Soul, and I felt like there was something wrong with Reapertale's Asgore when he spoke to Ink.... So, I was always wondering if something else was going on, and I was right."

"Thankfully Reapertale Asgore is no more... for this Soul, but to restore Ink's soul, both Ink's must receive their souls at the same time." Umbra explained.

"Yeah, he was working for the guy." Goth rubbed the back of his head. "He was actually how Dad was captured by him, he provided his Boss with a Gem, and he was the one behind the attack when I was just a baby."

"WHAT?!" Geno yelled, with his white eyelight turning into a mixed red-blue one.

"Relax, Fate agreed to an absolution. That Asgore no longer exists in any sense, and hopefully, when the new Reapertale Asgore is born, he is more like Shades's friendly Asgore." Umbra said, but just thinking of Fate agreeing with anyone just made his head hurt even more.

"Shades?" Ink asked.

 **"Goth's counterpart from the other Multiverse."** Nightmare explained. **"Error dragged Goth to a meeting a year after he was kidnapped, explaining that the Kid was going something for him and because of that, we couldn't touch him, but we really didn't get involved until Reaper was taken, and Error remembered which AU that he came from. We posted guards on Reaper's family and we made sure that Goth remembered to eat and he kept us up to date with what was going on, and that he had met his Counterpart, Shades, who was doing the same thing. The two of them worked together to solve the problem and they did visit each other's Multiverse as well."**

"Error remembered his past?" Ink asked.

"Yes." Umbra said simply. "It's long gone... There's nothing to return to."

**"But he did check to see if anything survived, and I don't know if he found anything, but if he did, he took it with him..."**

"Unfortunately. he never told me, and The Error on the other side also found out about his past too. They would have felt their counterpart's passing, and it's doubtful that Error will stay for much longer, since their time is about to end." Umbra replied.

 _'It's called Retirement.'_ Shades giggled.

"And well, while I was doing my job, I found out why he took Palette..." Goth looked to the side. "Fate wanted to make sure that no one could ever find your Soul..."

"And how did Fate do that?" Dream asked.

"Well, it's kinda difficult for me to explain, but to stop Ink from going near the Temples, Fate made sure that he would always get sick if he got too close to one." Goth rubbed the back of his head, nervously.

Umbra rolled his eyes, the temples had been a paaaaaain to build that way.

And now, his temples were in ruins, apart from the one that was build for Solas.

 _'There, there, Umbra, I'm sure that you can always build other cool and awesome things in the future.'_ Shades said.

 _'It's not the same.'_ He responded.

 _'You could always turn your place into an official temple of shadows!'_ Shades giggled.

"But the thing is, I think that Fate didn't plan for Pally, because while she set up a shield around one of the temples, only those who shared her DNA, or coding, could take it down.

And since Ink couldn't go near the Temples, and Fate was just too smart to go near them, that just left Pally, so he was kidnapped so the shield could be taken down."

"Then why didn't you stop the kidnapping?" Ink asked. "If you knew about this."

"I found this out after Pally was taken, Fate was really thorough when she, and Umbra, hid the information, and I didn't learn about this until it was too late."

"Take it up with Fate, I could only follow her orders." Umbra said with a smile, and it wasn't a friendly one.. but one that put fear into one's soul. They better not blame Fate's whipping boy, because if they did, it would not be pretty.

Balance or no balance.

"Yeah, Umbra could only follow Fate's orders, and the other being that had an idea about this was a child..." He had to explain Solas to them, this was going to be fun! "Fate may have tried to stop that guy from taking me, because I was part of her plan to with deal with Asgore, and well, she accidentally took part of my Soul..."

"And you've all come across Solas, Fate had that part of his Soul given a form." Umbra said happily, with a smile that was the total opposite of his usual cold smile.

"He was adorable when Fate and I formed his body, he did not want to leave the place that his Soul piece had rested in for so long." Umbra rambled on, and he walked away from everyone, rambling on about the adorableness of Solas.

"And because of that, Solas is now my version of Cross's Chara." Goth smiled. "He's sleeping right now, but technically, he's my kid...."

"Hurt Solas and they'll never find your Soul or dust." Umbra said with a way too friendly smile, after all, Umbra had raised Solas, and he had even carried him in his own Soul once.

"And I'll help him." Goth had a way too friendly smile as well.

Umbra patted Searcher on the head, and.. he somehow passed him a fresh cone of nicecream.

Raising Solas had given him bad habits towards his counterpart, like treating them whenever they threatened others with physical and mental harm.

Goth took the nicecream cone and he quite happily started to eat it.

"So, what happens next?" Palette asked.

"Well... getting both Ink's in one spot.. and making sure that both Goth's give Ink boy their Souls at the exact same time." Umbra said, not even paying attention as he gave Seeker a nicecream cone too.

He gave Ink some broccoli.

Palette started to eat his nicecream cone as well, while Ink had thoughts about tossing the broccoli in the Void, but he paused when he saw the single Golden eyelight glaring at him.

He sweated a bit, before he started to eat the broccoli.

And Goth just smiled at Ink.

"Now... if only I knew where the Fear counterpart was, because that would make this so much easier." Umbra grumped. "At least they won't be able to help each other now."

He took out a chocolate bar, and he took a savage bite out of it.

"Well, at least one of them won't be bothering us again." Reaper said. "Now, if you excuse me, I'm off to reap his ass!"

"Have fuuuun." Umbra said, in between bites of what seemed to be a chocolate bar that renewed itself.

Reaper crackled before he floated off to reap Fear.

"But, how exactly, do you hide a Soul like Ink's?" Dream asked.

"That's simple, you just stick it in an AU that could have a reason to explain why it would have an strange aura." Goth said. "And well, since Ink could be called another Life...."

 **"The squid's Soul was in Reapertale?!"** Nightmare yelled.

"Since it's conception, now that was a fun place to build into Reapertale's coding." Umbra said happily.

"Yep, Solas loves where he hid the Soul after Umbra got it from our Fate, and she must have been laughing at Asgore, because it was hiding right under his nose."

"Hmm... I just realized I should probably lock the door there, after all, I have an entrance there... And I would not rather have some poor idiot... er.. victim falling into the Void." Umbra muttered under his breath. "And with my luck, it would be a Gaster, and the Void has enough Gasters...."

"Yeah.... It does..."

Umbra muttered under his breath, of Gasters, and their stupid line dancing competitions outside his window.

"But what does Broomie have to do with this?" Reaper asked as he rejoined them.

"Soul and Magic support, a type of life support so he could continue on living without his Soul." Umbra replied.

Goth messed with the Soul container, before he pulled it out, revealing Ink's Soul.

"Put that away Kiddo, let's not give Lady Luck any chances to screw with us and have that grabbed." Umbra said, staring at the soul, he was keeping his Ink's soul in his item space till the moment it was needed.

"Oh, right." He put the Soul away.

"I keep on forgetting, that your counterpart Shades is the one with the common sense." Umbra teased.

"Meanie..." He pouted.

"But you are a lot more patient then Shades." Umbra giggled.

Shades pouted, and Solas giggled.

"I have to be..."

"But you're also easier to freak out, do you remember the library, when you thought that Shades would fall? The only one who had the ability to float at the time." Umbra teased, actually poking Searcher a bit. Goth blushed.

Shades laughed, and both of them heard it.

 _'You're idiots, both of you.'_ Shades told them. _'You're going to give the game away if you keep on acting like this.'_

_'Oh..... And we don't want to do that.'_

_'Nope, after all, the split Multiverses is hard enough to explain. Do you really want to explain Umbra to them, or the admins or Shell?'_ Shades responded.

_'No.'_

_'What about Retconned? We might be able to explain him... after all, we all know that he'll probably pop up and scare the parents by offering them cookies?'_ Umbra suggested.

 _'Wait until he appears, he mentioned that he's helping someone named Chaos lately.. Who only shares a name with the Admin.'_ Shades replied.

Before anyone panics, these mental messages took only a few seconds in real time.

"So, what should we do now?" Palette asked.

"I guess... That we should start getting both Inks, and Goths, in one spot, before we end this mess." Umbra said, putting his chocolate bar away.


	33. Chapter Twenty-Nine: On Journey's End

The Error was dying.

Fading.

The Final Journey.

His string had been cut.

Okay, not really, but Error was quite ready to play this role.

Searcher and himself had decided on how to take this self out of the equation, and the aspect that was Error, was ready to sleep and never resurface. Shades and Umbra didn't need him, the part of them that was the destroyer was no longer needed.

"ERROR!" A voice cried, Error winced from where his 'weakened' form lay on a beanbag.

Behind the running Ink, came Dream and Searcher, Searcher was using Solas's Light magic to appear as Shades.

"So.. you came..." He grasped out weakly.

He would never admit to having Umbra using his magic to make him look as if he was Dusting.

"Of course I came, I can't believe that you kept Gothy safe! It was so surprising when he just appeared and he told me that you needed me now." Ink sniffled, he was clearly a bit high because of his paints.

Searcher was trying his hardest not to blow his cover, but to see his Counterpart Dusting like this, even it they were faking it... It still hurt....

"Error! Don't go! Please!" He rushed to Error's side, running pass Shades's Ink and Dream. "Who's going to teach me how to make more Dolls? And he is still out there, what if he tries to take me again?! You can't leave me Uncle Error!"

 _Please never ever call us that again_ Shades hissed through the link, which was still running, somehow, even without the jade necklace.

"All things end kid, and now... that it's... _cough_... been removed... my duty is over." Error said, his voice was a whisper.

 _You know that your Dream will fall for any sob story Shades_ Searcher hissed through their link, even as he began to cry. "No, this can't be the end...."

"What's been removed?" Dream asked, gently hugging Ink, who was not taking the current situation well.

"I don't know..." Searcher whispered. "He said that without it, he would have died with his AU, when it destroyed itself."

"Long... ago... _cough_... The final Piece was hid here. It kept me alive.. _cough_... no matter.. what I wanted. Kept.. _cough_.. the Balance like it demanded. Umbra.. _cough_.. finally able to... _hack... cough_... gather the rest. I shall... finally.. sleep. Umbra.. Will.. look.. after the Souls." Error shivered, and at the mention of Souls, everyone looked up to realize that the strings and Souls were gone.

 _They're staying in my vaults_ Umbra replied. _Unless they're needed_

 _Why did we use such a cheesy death?_ Shades asked, he was already bored with this.

 _Because Solas saw it on a medical drama and begged us to use it_ Umbra muttered.

Solas, of course, was smug and he was enjoying the drama.

The little one was happily eating some popcorn that his Mama got for him, watching everything.

Searcher sadly smiled. "I don't want to say Goodbye..."

"All... Things.. end. Even the Multiverse." Error said, coughing up marrow. "Ink.. go.. _cough_.. to Umbra."

Searcher sniffed, before more tears fell from his eyesockets.

"Umbra..." Ink squeaked like a mouse.

"Squid..." Error chuckled.

"Couldn't you just stay alive and tell me?" Ink asked, hopeful at the thought of avoiding Umbra.

 _I feel lovvved_ Umbra snarked.

 _Don't worry, we love you Big Brother_ Solas said. _But I won't share my popcorn_

"Sorry... Had to say.. goodbye... Stay strong Goth..." Error said, and his form shattered into Dust, leaving his blue scarf behind.

"No... Error, you're not allowed to Dust. Who else can give me good fights and fun?!" Ink cried out in dismay.

 _Yes.. the fights_ Umbra said dryly, having phased out with the 'Dusting.'

"That's all that you cared about?!" Searcher yelled. "Good fights and fun?! He was so much more than that, and now, you'll never see that..."

"Goth..." Dream said quietly. "Death isn't something Ink actually understands, when he dies, he respawns in the Doodlesphere. To him, it means people vanish, he doesn't have a Soul to understand it."

"But..." Searcher began, before he made it look like he was so upset that he couldn't continue his sentence.

"I know that it hurts, but Ink's paints can only do so much. I knew that when I fell in love with him, when I had Palette with him... and being Soulless means... he just can't connect with those things." Dream replied.

"How could you have Pally if Ink doesn't have a Soul?" Searcher said. "Shouldn't Pally have half a Soul, instead of a full Soul?"

"I was just relieved that he had a full Soul, none of us could figure it out." Dream sighed, he turned to look at Ink.

"Error..." Ink pouted.

"Ink, we should honor Error's final request right away." Dream told him, and Ink flinched.

"Now?" He asked.

"NOW!" Dream said, flatly.

"Yes dear.." Ink sighed.

 _Whipped._ Umbra smirked.

 _He'll be even more whipped after he gets his Soul back._ Searcher silently giggled.

 _Henpecked._ Shades chirped.

 _And crying all over the place._ Solas ate more of his popcorn.

 _Anyway... can we get this show on the road? The faster that we do this, the faster that I can watch Truth seduce Shades._ Umbra cackled.

 _Whhyyyyyy?!_ Shades cried.

Searcher tried his best not to blush. _I think that Seeker is not going to let me leave his bed..._

"Goth, I'm going to take you home. Ink and I will see Umbra, your family needs you." Dream said kindly.

"Thank you Mr.Dream." Searcher sniffed.

 _Aren't you glad that Mom agreed to this, so you can sneak away afterwards?_ Shades said brightly.

 _Yep, and mine agreed to it as well._ Searcher replied.

 _We shall never allow them to meet, somehow, they'll dual ground us._ Shades replied dryly.

 _And I don't want to be dual grounded._ Searcher nodded his head.

 _What's grounding Big Brother?_ Solas asked, he was confused.

 _I'll explain it when you get older._ Umbra replied.

 _But Solas never ages._ Solas said, bewildered.

_Yes, I know..._

_Mama?_ Solas turned to Searcher.

 _Nope, I am not gonna explain that!_ Searcher told him.

 _Awwwww....._ Solas pouted.

Ten minutes later, a tearful Geno took Searcher into his arms, and Searcher hugged his Mama happily.

"I can't believe that your idea worked, but those two are dense." Geno said.

Searcher laughed. "Yeah, they are."

OoOoO

Umbra... was bored, how hard was it for Ink and Dream to find him.

'Its been hours' he thought annoyed, he hadn't even wondered out of the AU he'd been in.

This was a place where the two multiverses barriers were thin, amusingly enough a park where a certain Yandere haunted in search of Solas.

He paused, did Solas just shiver in the other multiverse?

Searcher frowned as he felt Solas shiver, he had just returned to his own Multiverse.

_"Solas?"_

_"Bad Feeling Sans Mama!"_ Solas yelled and Goth frowned. How much trouble would he get into if he got rid of the Yandere....

Well, at least they had escaped Shades's parents when he told them that he did have to return his Ink's Soul.

 _Do I need to go over there and murder that guy_ Umbra called.

 _"No, he's mine."_ Searcher responded.

 _'Have fun, I'm going to randomly set pranks up as its taking forever for my Ink and Dream to get here'_ Umbra cackled.

 _'Ohh... sprinkles'_ Shades said gleefully.

Lets just be glad no one else but Umbra was in the park, or there would be traumatized children and screaming.

OoOoO

Meanwhile, while Shades and Searcher and their alter egos were getting ready to fix the great Soul debate.... Two other beings met. Fate met Fate, face to face, for the first time, after they had been separated into semi separated Fates.

"It's almost over." The Fate of Shades's side said.

"It's not over until both Fears are gone, one of them has been destroyed, and when the other one is destroyed, he'll be gone forever. The idiot tied too much of themselves to that mortal avatar." Searcher's Fate sneered.

"I wonder what it would have been like if the split had never happened." Shades's Fate was wondering about that.

Searcher's Fate gave her a _'Are you a nimrod?'_ look.

Shade's Fate blushed, right.. she could just peek into another Multiverse for that answer.

"Twenty Multiverse coupons on the other Fear using any back up plan that he may have." Searcher's Fate said.

"Deal!" Shades's Fate chirped.

A Hedgehog and a Temmie were facepalming themselves on the other side of the room that they were sharing with the Fates.

OoOoO

Dream and Ink hurried the best they could.

They hadn't meant to take this long to look for Umbra.

But...  
They'd had a run in with Epic, and a mime Sans.

No one expected the mime.

Dream had no clue how a mime.. well miming Godzilla somehow destroyed buildings.

Epic had of course challenged the mime.

The duo fled hoping to find Umbra.

OoOoO

The first notice that something was going on was a scream, followed by an explosion.

Sprinkled rained down in the distance.

Umbra smirked.

' _Inky and Dream are finally arriving, they just fell into the pudding pit with rain sprinkles'_ he said giggling.  
 _ **Thwak thwak.. Thump**_  
"EEEEEK!"  
Wow, Dream sure could scream.  
 _'There goes the Ice magic balloons'_ Shades giggled.

"Beeeeeees!" came Dreams voice.  
 _'I thought we agreed no bees?'_ Shades asked.

' _We did, that's a natural hive'_ Umbra replied in disbelief.

' _Do you think we over did it with the Pranks?'_ Shades finally said ten minutes later.

There was a few minutes silence.

' _Nah...'_ they both said together, after all it got them hilarious pictures to share with Ser and Solas.

"Ahhhhh Termites! Get away from Broomie!" Ink yelled.

Umbra blinked, this place had termites?

"Just.. what the heck are those two doing?" Umbra asked no one bewildered, they should have gotten to him forever ago.

"Oh Deer!" Dreams voice said.

Thump

"Ack!" came a yelp from Dream.

"Pretty sure deer's, are suppose to run not become aggressive when someone tried to pet them," Ink said thoughtfully.

Umbra facepalmed.

Lady and gents, meet the Heroes of his multiverse.

OoOoO

Truth giggled, he didn't know why but he had a feeling something hilarious was happening to his parents.

He also had a feeling Gothy was part of it.

Let it not be said, that Palette wouldn't enjoy revenge against his parents in other ways...

Forget his birthday would they.

OoOoO

Seeker looked around when they reached the park, it was beautiful...

This was it, finally, they could end this... And Gothy could come home...

Searcher sent a quick message to Umbra, they were ready.

OoOoO

A rather bedragged Ink and Dream slowly approached Umbra, looking as if they expected to be attacked or pranked at any moment.

Umbra sipped his tea, ignoring the duo.

He had no idea how they'd gotten into so much trouble, they'd only hit five of his pranks.. the rest was all them.

"Umbra.." Dream said as they reached the being of darkness and shadows.

"Take a seat," Umbra said, having set up a table and chair while waiting. It had tea and snacks waiting on it,

"What now?" Ink asked.

"We complete this, make the two sides equal. After all Solas is ready also," Umbra said.

He held up his hand and the world seemed to shimmer and fade.

To Thin...

Two worlds met.

Dream and Ink gave surprised sounds at those on the other side were revealed.

'I'm ready also' he told Solas and Ser.

OoOoO

Two Souls, two Counterparts, beating in harmony.

A Soul from the Negative Half, with a Child of Light.

A Soul from the Positive Half, with a Guardian of Darkness.

And at the same time, both of them pulled out the Soul that they had been taken to find.

A cycle was finally coming to an end.

"Are you ready?" Umbra asked everyone, with Ink's soul glowing in his hands.

"To be whole once more?" Solas asked.

"To learn what was lost." Umbra continued.

"To remember what it's like to Hope?" Solas continued.

"Will you take a risk that can destroy you, to learn how to create a better tomorrow for yourself?" Umbra said.

"And to create a better tomorrow for those that you love?" Solas asked.

"I have to chance it, I.. don't really understand many things because I don't have a Soul. I only know love, thanks to my paints, and I know that I hurt people, but I never realize it. I want to love Dream and Palette, really love him... if anything they deserve to know a Father, and a Partner, that can truly love them back." Shades's Ink finally said.

"Ink.." Shades's Dream said, smiling when he heard his husband's speech.

"And I don't want to feel empty anymore." Searcher's Ink said. "I want to mourn for everyone that I lost, I want to apologise to everyone that I hurt, and I want to give Dream all of my love! I don't want the false love that my paints give me, I want to know what love really feels like, and I want to do it with Dream. I want to be that proud Father that cheers my Son on when he does something special and unique, I want to love my family."

"Dad..." Seeker was crying, and his tears fell down his cheeks.

"Also, is this a belated birthday gift for Palette?" Umbra suddenly said, dry as heck.

Shades's Dream blushed, while Ink had a puzzled look on his face.

"Palette had a birthday?" Shade Ink asked, bewildered.

 _'Thank goodness his memory will be better when he gets his Soul!'_ Shades cried.

"And this counts as my belated birthday gift too!" Seeker yelled, making his parents blush.

"It's time." Umbra said.

"Step forward." Solas continued.

The Inks traded looks, and they stepped forwards, standing in front of Umbra and Solas.

"Will it hurt?" Shades's Ink asked.

"No.." Umbra replied. "It should feel like you're coming home."

"At the end of a long journey." Solas said. "And this is the end of a long journey, a journey that began so long ago...."

Two beings, held up the glowing Souls that had been lost to their owners so long ago, one of them had been taken as a prize, by a cruel Being with a dark heart, while the other one had been taken, by a worried Mother, to protect it.

Gently, they released them, and Shades's Ink made a strange gasp, and he swayed as the Soul entered him, and Searcher's Ink fainted on the spot.

"Ink!" Searcher's Dream cried, rushing to his mate, followed by their son.

"Dream... I need to lay down." Shades Ink said, he felt like he was about to faint.

"Thank you." Shades's Dream told Solas and Umbra, before he grabbed Ink and he portalled away.

Shrugging his shoulders, Umbra crossed over to Searcher's Multiverse.

"Palette, I'm taking your dad home, will you be okay if I let you stay here?" Dream asked the teen.

"Don't worry, I'm good. I have Umbra and Solas to keep an eye on me and Gothy." Seeker said with a smile.

Dream gave them one last look, and then, he left with the unconscious Ink.

"It's over, we don't have to worry about their Souls again...." Umbra said, before he switched places with Shades.

"You just want a Vacation." Searcher said as Solas's form faded away.

"And?" Shades asked.

"I'm pretty sure that I'll be taking a Vacation too, with my Pally." Searcher replied, and with that, he ran towards his Date mate.

Seeker laughed as Searcher pulled him into his arms, before he reached up, and he used Searcher's red scarf to pull him into a kiss.

Palette smiled at Goth as he knelt down, and he reached out, cupping his friend's face in his hands, it was all over. They would finally have their happy ending.

Their lips gently meet in a slow dance, twisting and wrapping around each other.

Palette moved his hands to Goth's T-shirt and he held onto it as they kissed, and Palette closed his eyes, and he let this warmth wash over him, as he smiled into the kiss.

Goth smiled back when he felt Palette smiling into the kiss, but he didn't close his eyes...

And that was how he saw the figure that appeared behind Palette....

It all happened so fast...

Palette felt himself being spun around and he opened his eyes in time to see the light from the attack that hit Goth in the back and Palette gasped, even as he let go of Goth's T-shirt.

Goth smiled at him, even as his form started to slowly become transparent, and he fell to the ground, as someone walked towards him, and Palette gasped. "Gothy?!"

"Thank you Palette, for everything." Goth smiled, even as the figure grabbed him by a leg, and they began to drag him away.

Palette tried to reach for Goth's hands, but they were already far beyond his reach. Palette's hands only went through Goth's, and Palette screamed.

He could barely move, and out of the corner of his eyesockets as he slowly moved, he saw that Shades had been frozen.

"No! Gothy! You can't do this again! You can't leave me again!" He screamed as he tried to reach out to his Soulmate, he had to save his Gothy!

"It's different this time." Goth said. "Because this time, no matter what happens or how long it takes me, I'll find my way home...."

Goth's legs, and the one who was dragging him away from them, were gone now, even as Geno and Reaper tried to use Blue Magic to save him....

Goth smiled, before he cupped Palette's face in his transparent hands. "I love you Palette." He moved in closer for one last kiss, even as the rest of his body faded away.

Palette could feel Goth's lips fading away and tears started to steam down his cheeks, but he refused to look away, even as Goth faded away, leaving his scarf, along with Palette's, behind.

The two items of clothing were tightly tied together, they had been wrapped around each other, as if they were holding on to each other...

OoOoO

Shades swore, he had been unable to do anything, and he had been forced to watch what had just happened, right in front of him.

Seeker was crying, and he was trying to grab the bundle of clothing that had been left behind...

 _'Fear.. our Fear just took Solas and Ser.'_ Umbra said, he was not happy.

Suddenly there was a popping noise, and the Magic that had kept both of them frozen, making them watch as that Fear took Searcher and Solas away from them, released them, and they could move again.

Seeker ran towards the items of clothing and he picked them up, holding them close to his chest as he cried. "No.... I just got him back! Gothy!!! Come back! Please! Don't leave me....."

"No.. I can't.... This can't happen again!" Geno cried, as his form started to flicker, in a very Fatal like way.

"Geno.. Babe, we will find him again, I promise." Reaper said, hugging his mate.

"Can you find him?" Seeker asked as he looked at Shades hopefully, and this made everyone look at Shades.

"No... I can't feel, or find them anywhere, this has to be my fault..." Shades said, and he broke down, crying, because he'd always been able to find Solas, no matter what.

Geno gently hugged his son's counterpart.

"Shh... it's okay, it's not your fault." Geno gently told the smaller version of the Dark Guardian.

Everything was not okay....


	34. Epilogue: The Final Aftermath...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Read The Notes at the End Once you finish the Story <3

Time seemed so fleeting.

Speeding by so quickly for Shades/Umbra.

Which was strange, because, thanks to the time loops, he was technically older then the Multiverse, and that time had always seemed to go by at a snail's pace.

It could be different now, because he didn't know what was to come...

His mind was a bit quieter, the Error aspect part of his personality slept so deeply that he couldn't touch it. Even Umbra mostly slept, but he was closer to the surface, because he was so tired....

It was too quiet...

He kept on expecting to see Solas when he turned around, and Solas would demand a cuddle from him, to play with him, or something else....

To chat with Ser as Shades, or to watch him go about his daily life as Umbra.

Goth scowled a bit, he was happy to be home, and everyone could see that... but the other half of his being, Ser/Solas, was missing.

He was bewildered, why he couldn't find them, for goodness sake he'd carried Solas's Soul piece in his own Soul for years, giving him the link that usually formed between a mother and their child. He'd always known where Solas was and how he felt, but he couldn't feel anything.... He couldn't even feel the gaping wound that would have formed if Ser/Solas had died.

Of course if Ser and Solas died, Shades and Umbra would follow them, because they were two halves of the same coin, they used to be the same Skeleton. They were counterparts...

"Gothy, Gothy!" A voice called, and Goth blinked, coming out of a spiral of depressing thoughts.

"Hello Palette, is the party about to begin?" Goth asked with a smile.

"Yup, so come on. Everyone is waiting for us!" Palette said, gently taking Goth's hand and pulling him to his feet, before they started to run towards the location of the party.

Goth started to laugh, he could trust Palette to cheer him up.

OoOoO

Seeker frowned when he heard someone pounding on his bedroom door.

"Come on Mopey head! Get up!"

Rurik....

They had found his Fell counterpart two days after Gothy had disappeared, and they had to explain everything to him.

Rurik was not pleased that his baby's godfather had been kidnapped by someone with no honour, and he had made it his personal mission to drag Seeker out of his bedroom whenever he found his Tale Counterpart in it.

Searcher had gotten Lotus out of a toxic situation, and since he wasn't here, Rurik was going to make sure that Seeker wouldn't starve himself to death by moping in his room.

Rurik opened the door with a kick, before he slung one of Seeker's arms over his shoulders, and he began to drag Seeker out of the room.

"Have you put on weight Mopey Head?! Come on, get up and start walking!"

OoOoO

There was food and people everywhere, bright lights, and scents, and sounds....

It was almost too much....

Goth blinked, and for a moment, he thought that he had spotted Retconned in the crowd.

"Oh, these cookies are great! Who brought them?" A voice asked, and Goth snorted.

Of course Retconned would appear, and disappear, him and his cookies...

"What's so funny?" Palette asked.

"I'll tell you later." Goth replied.

"Oh, Nightmare arrived!" Goth said happily, as Nightmare, and his Doom and Gloom boys, knew the truth about him being Error. He had told them about Searcher, and they had been keeping an eye out for him...

And this party, was one of the rare ones that had a temporary truce. Which meant, if you came across the murderer that had killed your lover.. Welp, you couldn't do anything, these parties had a 'No fighting' rule.

Nightmare walked over to them, with everyone avoiding his darkness.

" **Are you okay kid?"** Nightmare asked.

"I could be better." Goth replied.

" **Hang in there Goth, things will work out, and we will find him."** Nightmare replied, and then, he walked away.

But Goth knew that they would talk later, when people not in the know, couldn't eavesdropped on them.

"That was nice of him." Palette said, he knew that his Uncle would usually avoid social events like this.

"By the way, where is your Mom?" Goth asked, as he looked around.

"No clue, I think that he had another idea to try to talk or 'save' Uncle Nightmare." Palette said with a sigh, and Goth snorted.

Dream really should just give up.

OoOoO

Dream grinned, as he held up a large bottle of amber liquid.

This was some very powerful alcohol.

One with no taste or smell, so it wasn't very popular.

He remembered that Nightmare became more mellow after he had some alcohol.

And he had seen Nightmare sipping the alcohol laced punch earlier.

Maybe, he could become mellow enough for Dream to talk to him.

He added it to the punch that was about to go out on the floor.

But, there was a problem...

He put it in the wrong punch.

The one that had been reversed for the Children, or the Adults, that didn't want to get drunk tonight.

OoOoO

"Hey..." Palette and Goth heard someone speaking to them.

They turned around to see Seeker standing there, and he looked like he had just gotten out of his bed.

The Palette's clothes were rumped, and there was a stain on the right shoulder of his jacket.

They could see the eyebags underneath Seeker's eyesockets, and Palette frowned when he saw something.

Was it just a trick of the light... but that didn't explain why it looked like Seeker was taller than Palette...

OoOoO

"Kill it..." Umbra hissed, as the sunlight hit his face.

"Destroy it, sunlight must die..." He grumbled.

His eyes opened, and he jumped up, running to their private bathroom, and he threw up in the toilet.

"Gross..." Umbra said, and he gargled some water to get the taste out of his mouth.

 _'Why do we hurt so much?'_ Shades moaned.

 _'Ugh.. even talking like this hurts..'_ Umbra replied. _'Also, why am I in charge of the body?'_

 _'Um....'_ Shades said, and somehow, he blushed, while he was inside of their head. _'You have realized our current state, right?'_

Umbra frowned, he was wondering why his other self was so embarrassed.

 _'We're naked.'_ Shades muttered.

 _'We walked around, naked, all the time, when we lived in the void.'_ Umbra told his other self.

 _'We woke up, naked, in a bed with a naked Palette.'_ Shades squeaked.

"Eh?!!!" Umbra said, shocked.

 _'We have a dim ecto flow over our bones.'_ Shades finally said, in a just done voice.

"Mom's going to kill us." Umbra said. "

Kill who?" Palette asked, as he walked up behind them, he didn't blink when he saw Umbra's golden eyelights.

"Pally, what do you remember about last night?" Shades said as he took over, but their eyelights remained gold, with specks of red, that were growing stronger...

"Um... we greeted Seeker, and we helped him clean up for the party.. And we went for punch?" Palette said, he was so confused, what happened?

"Someone spiked the punch." Goth moaned, which explained his current state, he was a bit of a lightweight, and he didn't have any experience when it came to dealing with alcohol and the effects that it had on his body.

"Oh.. that explains why I feel sick," Palette thoughtfully said and Goth twitched.

"Pally, we had drunk sex last night." Goth dryly told him.

"What?! But I wanted our first time to be special... I don't remember anything!" Palette protested.

"Without protection..." Goth growled, and he got a blank look from Palette.

Goth twitched again, with purple markings briefly appearing in his eye lights.

Must not kill Palette.

Instead, he summoned his own Soul. The golden Soul was beautiful, but in it's centre was a tiny, forming Proto-Soul.

"Oh..." Palette said.

And he fainted.

Grumbling, Goth put his Soul away and he took a shower, he was not going to face a hung over household, with the scents of alcohol and sex, clinging to his bones.

OoOoO

Seeker groaned as he woke up, he didn't want to get up, he didn't want to face another day without his Searcher...

He rolled over as the sunlight hit his face.

"Nooo.... I don't wanna get up Rurik."

He slowly opened his eyes, only to see that he wasn't in his bedroom, but he reached into his jacket, and he pulled out a bundle of clothing.

"Gothy..." He quietly started to cry as he hugged the bundle of clothing.

OoOoO

Goth yawned as he pulled on his clothing, he felt better after he had taken a shower.

He stared at the bones of his hands.... Sometime, he would see a shimmer of gold, or purple Magic, or the markings.

He'd discovered a long time ago, that these were marks in his Magic, from his time under Fate, as the Destroyer, and they had changed during his time as Umbra. He couldn't read them, but he knew what they were.

And Fate didn't need him anymore, but he did have to act as Umbra, occasionally, when the Fates needed him....

They were records...

A record of every AU and story that would exist in his Multiverse, Fate had written it into his very Magic and Soul, so that Ink's creative Magic would create them.

He was a living record of his Multiverse, for what was, what it would be, and what it used to be... for both sides, and as long as he existed, the Fates had the codes needed to recreate the Multiverses, if anything happened to them. He hoped it was never needed. Solas and Ser had it too, but they only had it, because he'd shared it with them, on that day, at the library.

He wondered if Ser, or Solas, had something written in there Codes.....

He hummed, feeling Seeker waking up in the next room.

"I'M NOT READY TO BE A DAD!" Palette cried as he woke up, and then, he fainted again, with a loud thump.

He shook his head and he snorted.

What a morning....

OoOoO

Seeker slowly rolled out of his makeshift bed, and he slowly got to his feet, shuffling towards the kitchen, to find some food.

He grumbled as he headed for the box of tea that he could see on the counter. "Tea....."

OoOoO

Breakfast... was awkward.

Goth was still half out of it, from the fact that he'd lost his virginity, and the fact that he'd started the process of creating a Souling....

This meant that Umbra was in charge of their body, and the only thing that told everyone that it was Umbra, was his eyelights.

Palette looked ready to climb underneath the table and hide, but if anyone looked at Geno and Reaper, they would have seen the looks of murder on their faces that appeared on them, after they saw the shine of Magic on Goth's bones.

They weren't ready for grandchildren, damn it.

Thankfully, Goth's younger siblings had slept over at a friend's house last night, they didn't like going to these parties.

Seeker's Rurik had apparently gone home early, before they had the spiked punch, to check on his Mate.

Seeker had stumbled into the kitchen, with bleary, red eyed eyelights, and no one said anything about the tears that they could see on his cheeks.

"Ur.." Umbra said, clutching his forehead, as he was assaulted by a sudden dizzy spell.

 _'STOP IT! LEAVE MAMA ALONE! MAMA!'_ Solas cried. _'DADDY! SAVE MAMA! PLEASE!'_

The world spun, as a missing connection snapped back into place.

"Are you okay Umbra?!" Reaper asked the other aspect of his son.

 _"Solas! Where are you?!"_ Umbra cried, out loud, and across the bond they shared.

 _'DADDY!'_ Solas screamed.

"No!" Umbra cried, as their connection was torn apart.

And he fell into Darkness from the shock, and Reaper caught him as his body fell out of his chair.

OoOoO

Seeker almost dropped the cup that he was using when he heard Umbra's voice.

Solas.... Wasn't that...

He gasped and he clutched at the fabric above his Soul when it started to scream in pain....

And something snapped within him....

Gothy.... His Gothy was hurt.... He wasn't in his arms, he couldn't keep him safe if he wasn't in his arms!

A dark glint flashed in Seeker's eyelights, but as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone....

And he threw up, into the sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'To find Searcher, they will have to enter a Multiverse that has been forgotten and abandoned.
> 
> They'll have to unravel the secrets of this Multiverse, to complete the prophecy of the Twilight Angel, to save him and Solas.
> 
> But, it's not going to be easy...
> 
> They have four obstacles in their way....
> 
> One: Shades is pregnant.
> 
> Two: Seeker is on the verge of becoming a Yandere.
> 
> Three: They have to find this Multiverse.
> 
> Four: Shades's Fear is alive, and he's planning his revenge.
> 
> And Searcher? He's not happy about being the Damsel in Distress...'
> 
> Coming Soon: Across the Twilight
> 
> Coming to you on ChaosDancer2's wattpad account (and well here also)
> 
> Chaos and Fire can't wait for this next journey!


End file.
